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Cyber-criminals Increasingly Targeting Attacks on Social Networks

Symantec, which has just published its Internet Security Threat report, states that spammers and fraudsters online are currently favoring attacks on social media unlike previously to have victims who'll prove more profitable.

As innumerable Web-surfers browse social-networking websites, cyber-criminals are most likely to target such surfers. Their tactics involving social engineering work perfectly on social media. For, users when networking with friends can easily be duped.

Over 50% of the total assaults detected on the Internet sites of social networking during 2011 had connection with malware served through hijacked blogs or other websites for Web-communications. It's here that sharing of hyperlinks happens across social networks, the hyper-linking done to hijacked sites. It's as well utilized more-and-more for dispatching unsolicited e-mails.

According to Craig Scroggie, Vice-President for Symantec (Pacific region), who's also Managing Director of the same branch, users of social networks think that because they are browsing one trustworthy site, there's little threat whatsoever impending on them. He explains that when any surfer communicates with friends/relatives, passing across links like "Click on this link," "Watch this video," "Go to this website" etc., usually the surfer doesn't imagine a security threat lurking. Zdnet.com.au published this dated April 1, 2012.

Symantec additionally states that targeted assaults on enterprises increased from 77/day to 82/day. These personalized assaults rely on social engineering for snatching control over corporate data, while albeit conventionally such assaults targeted big companies, during 2012, half of them attacked enterprises having a work-force less than 2,500, while an eighteen percent of organizations targeted, had less than 250.

Furthermore, according to the report, during 2011, when news headlines covered cyber-espionage topics in addition to political, the majority of personalized assaults had greed as the prime motive.

A Cyber-crime Index from Norton indicated that albeit hacking assaults weren't most often responsible for data-breaches, they, however, made the maximum influence, while exposing over 187.2m credentials. This number was the biggest in connection with any security-violation that occurred during 2011, states the report. And even as the media projected news about these security-violations, traditional forms of data-capturing were attributed to the majority of data-hacks during 2011, Symantec reports.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 5/9/2012

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