The Homa Files

Excerpted from: USA TODAY : How cybercriminals invade social networks, companies , Mar 4,2010

Cybercriminals are moving aggressively to take advantage of an unanticipated chink in corporate defenses: the use of social networks in workplace settings.

They are taking tricks honed in the spamming world and adapting them to what’s driving the growth of social networks: speed and openness of individuals communicating on the Internet.

“Social networks provide a rich repository of information cybercriminals can use to refine their phishing attacks.”

This shift is gathering steam.

One sign: The volume of spam and phishing scams more than doubled in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008.

“Phishing” lures — designed to trick you into clicking on an infectious Web link — are flooding e-mail inboxes, as well as social-network messages and postings, at unprecedented levels.

An infected PC, referred to as a “bot,” gets slotted into a network of thousands of other bots.

These “botnets” then are directed to execute all forms of cybercrime, from petty scams to cyberespionage.

Authorities in Spain announced the breakup of a massive botnet, called Mariposa, comprising more  than 12 million infected PCs in 190 countries.

The criminals had been spreading infected links for about a year, mainly via Microsoft’s free MSN instant messenger service.

Full story:
http://www.usatoday.com/cleanprint/?1267714767796

This entry was posted on March 17, 2010 at 7:15 am and is filed under Internet - Soc Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.