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In April, cybercriminals were seen exploiting users of major social networking sites so that you can spread malware and spam surveys, in accordance with GFI Software. “In exactly as the popularity of social networking sites ensures they are a widely accepted tool for businesses to reach customers and elevate brand awareness, additionally, it attracts cybercriminals seeking a sizable pool of captive users being focused on malware and spam attacks,” said Christopher Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software.“Established sites like Facebook have for ages been a breeding ground for first time cyber-attacks, but now we are seeing scammers taking an interest in the buzz of newer sites like Pinterest in order to catch victims off guard and trick them into simply clicking something they shouldn’t,” Boyd added.Twitter users were the quarry of cybercriminals trying to distribute fake antivirus applications within a particularly vicious spam run, which tweeted a hyperlink labeled “must-see” from numerous compromised accounts and spam-bots. Followers unlucky enough to click the links were forwarded to a web site contaminated with a fake antivirus program.

Once installed, this system constantly alerted users their machine was infected and requested payment to clean up the system. The following day, additional links used the Blackhole exploit kit to infect victims’ machines with malware before automatically sending these to a website that was hosting another scareware program called “Windows Antivirus Patch.”Twitter was also used like a platform to adopt benefit of users on Pinterest, a social networking site that is rapidly gaining interest. A spam campaign using the account “Pinterestdep” claimed to be offering Visa gift cards to users willing to provide their opinions about Pinterest.Rather than being directed to a person feedback form, victims were delivered to a site which required these to complete approximately 11 reward offers also to refer three friends to do this too. Scammers also took benefit of Tumblr users who mistakenly entered “Tublr” to their internet browser when trying to access the most popular micro-blogging site and redirected them to a message that claimed the victim have been selected being a “daily winner.” Just like the scam on Pinterest, the victim ended up being motivated to complete surveys or complete other offers in order to claim the prize.In the rehash of your popular lure used previously on Facebook and MySpace, scammers tricked users into installing a fake application which promised to exhibit them a list of individuals who had viewed their profile. The application did little more than tag the victim’s friends inside a spam image to be able to spread the fake application among their best social networking sites and serve them with surveys that generate affiliate cash for the scammer.

“With countless studies developing which indicate how often with which users are visiting a common social networking sites, it should come as no real surprise that cybercriminals see these sites as prime targets for his or her attacks while they turn to reach as much people as you possibly can,” continued Boyd.