Cybercriminals 'attacking social networkers at home and work'

2009-07-24

Cybercriminals are exploiting social networks by identifying and attacking targets at both home and at work, it has been suggested.

IT teams are worries about the amount of information that workers are placing on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to the Sophos Security Threat Report, which could potentially lead to a data breach.

Such employees could be putting their business' infrastructure at risk as well as the sensitive data stored on it, Sophos asserted.

In a survey by the organisation, 21.2 per cent of respondents revealed they had been sent malware on a social networking site.

Meanwhile, 33.4 per cent had been sent spam on such a website.

"The honeymoon period of these sites is over and personally identifiable information is at risk as a result of by constant attacks that the websites are simply not mature enough to protect against," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

According to the organisation, the US relayed more spam than any other country in the second quarter of this year.

It contributed 15.6 per cent of worldwide spam traffic, Sophos revealed.

Read more security news.