Over 1 Social Media Surfers from a Total of 10 Encountered Account Hijack, Finds Barracuda

According to Barracuda Networks, which recently conducted a survey, one social-networking website visitor in a total of 5 has encountered an adverse impact owing to details disclosed on these sites, while over 1 out of a total of 10 have even suffered hacks into their accounts. Computerworld.co.nz published this on October 14, 2011.

A few hundred members of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Google Plus from twenty nations were polled during the two weeks recently that revealed a population dramatically confident of taking the challenges.

Reportedly, the greatest problem with security seems to be e-mail junk, accounting for an enormous 91.9% of users becoming vulnerable to such spam across social-networking websites. Even greater concern, nonetheless, is that phishing assaults targeted 54.3% of users, whilst 23.3% became infected with malware. Meanwhile, merely 16.6% of survey participants reported that spam messages went out from their accounts which other users received, whereas 13% reported of someone compromising their accounts alternatively stealing their passwords.

Additionally according to the survey outcomes, the problem of maintaining privacy is similar in intensity as it's with security for innumerable members of social networks. Evidently, 51% of survey respondents stated that they were dissatisfied about Facebook's regulation of privacy, 30% dissatisfied about the same within Twitter, 29% within Google+, while 25% within LinkedIn. Essentially, the large percentage of dissatisfaction with Google+ seems astonishing, considering that the website gives so much attention to transparency in connection with privacy controls.

Moreover, there's a particularly interesting aspect about the survey's findings -twofold number of people feels scared about ID-theft compared to their fear of getting assaulted physically.

Remarking about these captivating as also fascinating discoveries, Vice-President and Chief Research Officer Dr. Paul Judge for Barracuda Networks stated that social-networking websites were an important part of the way people communicated amongst themselves. Simultaneously, there had been an exponential rise in the risks related to social networking. Moreover, given that 9 users from a total of ten had already encountered assaults demonstrated that cyber-criminals were gaining control over social-networking websites, with members continuing to remain in fear, Dr. Judge analyzed. Marketwatch.com reported this on October 12, 2011.

Related article: Opera 9.1 Browser Introduces phishing Alert

» SPAMfighter News - 10/21/2011