Its not just Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs that see dollar signs hovering over Facebook. Spammers are hopping on the social networking giant to fool users, according to a report from security firm Cloudmark.
Spammers are using botnets to send a barrage of malicious e-mail spam that mimic e-mails from social networking sites.
Messages from seemingly close-knit social networks have a greater upside for attackers than old-school e-mail blasts that may not be opened. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter breed trust, with users choosing their friends. That makes it more likely that a spammed e-mail message from a social netwok who their friend is and who they follow.
While these tactics aren’t new by any measure, with post-holiday spam levels continuing to gain steam, these alternative methods will likely persist.
Read more on this at Help
Net Security.
The past few weeks have brought a confusion of different reports. Leading anti spam vendors, including Cisco and Commtouch, noted a sharp drop-off in spam e-mail volume at the end of 2010. That was believed to be connected to the takedown of the spam-spewing botnet Rustock
Depending on which news source you’re consulting, spam may be as bad as ever, or fast disappearing from the NETThe days of e-mail spam aren’t necessarily numbered but it’s clear that spammers have relished the move to social networking and mobile messaging, according to a Help Net Security article that talked with Jamie Tomasello, Abuse Operations Manager at Cloudmark.
