Facebook and Twitter users are under attack by cybercriminals — and the incidents are rising, Sophos says in its its 2010 Security Threat Report released Monday. In the past 12 months, Sophos says, cybercriminals have focused more attacks on social-network users. Spam and malware are leading the charge.
Fifty-seven percent of users surveyed reported getting spammed via social-networking sites — an increase of 70.6 percent from 2008. And 36 percent say they have been sent malware via social-networking sites, a 69.8 percent increase.
“Computer users are spending more time on social networks, sharing sensitive and valuable personal information, and hackers have sniffed out where the money is to be made,” said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for Sophos. “The dramatic rise in attacks in the last year tells us that social networks and their millions of users have to do more to protect themselves from organized cybercrime or risk falling prey to identity-theft schemes, scams and malware attacks.”
The Biggest Orchard
Sophos surveyed more than 500 organizations and discovered that 72 percent are concerned that employee behavior on social-networking sites exposes their businesses to danger and puts the corporate infrastructure — and the sensitive data stored on it — at risk.
Facebook is perceived as the biggest threat. Sixty percent of the respondents named Facebook as the greatest security risk, followed by MySpace at 18 percent, Twitter at 17 percent, and LinkedIn at a mere four percent. Cluley said we shouldn’t forget that Facebook is by far the largest social network — and you’ll find more bad apples in the biggest orchard.
“The truth is that the security team at Facebook works hard to counter threats on their site — it’s just that policing 350 million users can’t be an easy job for anyone. But there is no doubt that simple changes could make Facebook…