Attacks Exploit Growing Use of Social Media

From: http://www.thenewnewinternet.com/2010/03/30/attacks-exploit-growing-use-of-social-media


Attacks perpetrated by cyber criminals are exploiting the growing reliance on social media by Internet users, according to a report released today by Blue Coat. As more Internet users shift to social media, the bad guys have moved along with them, seeking to leverage the new technologies to conduct malware attacks.

Blue Coat has extensive cloud systems offerings and has put together the “Blue Coat Web Security Report for 2009” which focuses not on anti-virus effectiveness but rather examines web behavior. Blue Coat provides URL monitoring, which Bob Hansmann, senior product marketing manager at Blue Coat Systems, says can help to protect customers from zero day exploits often missed by traditional anti-virus software.

“We’re securing those customers when a zero day [exploit] comes out,” he said.

The report found that social networking sites accounted for one quarter of all Web access activity in 2009. Over the previous year, social networking use skyrocketed 500 percent, according to the report.

The major driver behind cyber crime was possible financial gain, with attacks being “more adaptive to where and how users were using the Web at any given moment.”

According to Hansmann, a number of new technologies appeared in 2009. “Cyber criminals were the first to start using it,” he said.

Fake anti-virus programs topped the list of successful malware campaigns. Recently, Facebook experienced a fake anti-virus program that spreads itself by tagging “Friends” in a photo of the product.

Throughout 2009, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace experienced cyber attack campaigns, commonly using phishing tactics. One of the principle problems with social networking sites is that typical “indicators” of a phishing attack do not apply. It is common to see misspellings and other grammatical errors on social networking sites that are not tolerated in emails.

The method to combat the growing attempts by criminals to leverage social media is education. People are the first line of defense against malware attacks, and following simple practices such as “be careful what you click on” can make a world of difference, according to Hansmann.

In 2010, Blue Coat predicts that Web threats will continue to increase, social media technologies will be more vulnerable to attacks, email will not be used as often to distribute malware, malware distributors will continue to utilize hot topics to point unsuspecting users to infected websites and remote workers will be the most exposed to threats.