GFI Software’s VIPRE Report for January 2013 revealed that there is an increase in social network-based cybercrime attacks which include phishing messages on Twitter and Facebook.
GFI Software senior threat researcher ,Christopher Boyd, said that as the brands of popular social networking sites become more ingrained, their value to cybercriminals looking for new ways to disguise their attack campaigns will only increase.
"More and more young people entering the workforce think of social networking as a standard part of everyday life," Boyd said.
"By focusing their efforts on these sites, cybercriminals increase their chances of fooling a larger number of users to unknowingly download malware onto their PCs and mobile devices.
"As a result, these users end up providing social network account information that can be used to reach even more potential victims."
According to the report, several Twitter and Facebook users have been targeted by a direct message phishing campaign, while users of professional networking site LinkedIn also received spam emails that notified an employee had sent them an event invitation.
GFI’s ThreatNet automated threat tracking system revealed that Trojans and Adware malwares topped the list of threat detections in January.
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