Cybercriminals are increasing the number of attacks on social networks, according to a PC World article.

Security firm Sophos’ Security Threat Report a quarter of firms have been exposed to spam, phishing or malware attacks via sites such as Twitter , Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Also, two thirds of businesses are concerned that company employees share too much sensitive data on social networks, putting firms at risk.

Sophos said it has identified 22.5 million different types of malware in 2009, which is double the number identified in June 2008, while 89.7 percent of all business email received was spam.

The Security Threat Report also highlighted that the explosion of scareware or fake, paid-for anti-virus software online. The firm said it discovers around 15 sites offering these hoax antivirus programs each day – that’s a three-fold increase on the same period in 2008.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm and is filed under ID Theft Prevention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.