Social networking sites have become the new front in the war against spam, according to security watchers. In the six months leading up to March 2008, social networking sites saw a four-fold growth in the amount of spam on their network. At several major social networking sites, 30 per cent of new accounts created are automated fraudulent 'zombie' accounts, designed to be used for spam and other malicious attacks, according to anti-spam firm Cloudmark.

JF Sullivan, VP of marketing at Cloudmark, said the type of spam advertised through social networks is the same type as that advertised by email spam and punted by much the same people. "There's an implicit trust in social networking. People don't think they're going to be attacked with spam," Sullivan told El Reg. "People don't trust email anymore. Spammers are following peoples' online habits." Mobile spam, by contrast, is sent by different group of individuals.

View: The full story @ The Register


There are 2 additional comments
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(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by magik on 15 May 2008 - 20:26
What's the matter? Facebook's captcha aint up to snuff?
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by Unplugged on 16 May 2008 - 08:23
(magik said @ #1)
What's the matter? Facebook's captcha aint up to snuff?


Captchas only fool for so long. Given a few hours tweaking an existing captcha for the new font etc and they can develop a new system that will successfully bypass any new one face book sticks on with a few hours work.

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