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Commtouch Report Reveals Spam Attacks in 2011

In a recent report entitled "Internet Threats Trend" by Commtouch, scores of malicious activities victimizing the social network site Facebook in 2011 were revealed.

Amir Lev, Chief Technology Officer at Commtouch claims that in the pursuit of making huge money, spammers take to disgraceful activities and employ social engineering techniques to leverage a gainful opportune with popular social sites like Facebooks in disseminating malwares, as published in PR Newswire on December 28, 2011.

Commtouch also reported that scammers are aptly employing plots in tricking users into sharing distrustful links and copy-pasting malicious code that triggered a scripting attack and leads them into downloading malware and distributing the same.

It has been observed during the analysis that about 48% of users unknowingly become a part of the undesirable content by clicking on the 'like' or 'share' button. Users are also enticed into clicking the malware attached content through the various tactful tricks in the form of celebrity news, free merchandise schemes, new (fake) Facebook applications, or simply an acquaintance sending an e-mail with the heading "You have to see this!"

The second half of 2011 witnessed scams to a large extent in the form of free merchandise offers including free airline tickets, a free iPad or even unreleased Facebook phones that contributed to 26% of the scams as established in the report.

Email-borne malware banged in the third quarter of 2011 reportedly with the highest levels witnessed over the 2 Years, consequently followed by a decline in the earlier low levels as evident during the fourth quarter.

Even though e-mails containing attached malware came down during the year, e-mail with spiteful links ruled the air, abnormally compromising web sites. These spiteful themes generally enticed customers into clicking them with notifications and offers ranging from pizzas to airlines itineraries.

Sensational and censored events are yet another effective means of enmeshing users into traps like links with the promise of covering exclusive video footage of Osama bin Laden's death. The thirst for seeking information can is also noticed in the hike in the number of people clicking the "likes" and "dislikes" buttons for finding out people who viewed their profiles, as observed in the report revelation.

Related article: Commtouch Releases its Latest Report on Trends of E-Mail Threats

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