Tuesday, May 29, 2012

SHOCK: 40% of social media accounts are SPAMMERS





Image Credit: Digital Media Camp

The BusinessWeek has an article which reports that almost 40% of social media accounts belong to spammers. Facebook tops the list with Spammers making headway to abuse the 'Like' button and spammers have not spared Twitter or Pinterest either. Since email companies like GMail are pretty good at blocking spam and Hotmail also going all the way to disable botnets. It is reported that spammers are now turning to social media. Since Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest are soft targets. Google+ seems to be the better of the lot in terms of trying to stop spammers - with their real-name policy and all. No one of these sites are totally secure.


How do spammers abuse the Facebook 'Like' button.
If they get you to hit the like button, that means it gets posted to your news feed, your friends then also view it and they might be led to malicious sites which try to do nothing but steal your money and other important info. Spammers also use social sites to trick people into visiting porn sites. 


On Twitter
If you are a regular user then you might be used to it by now. Spammers flood the trending topics and add links that are not related to the topics at all. They are simple malicious links intended to lure you away and make use of your info.


On Pinterest
Your site can get hurt, when someone uses a photograph from your website and then links it to something that is X-rated or worse, a total spammy site.


All social media companies are trying to do something about it and they are seem to be succeeding but Spammers are always trying to stay one step ahead and the best protection against spammers is your own wisdom and judgement. You need to be careful and not get into the habit of 'Like Bombing'. If you are careful and use your own discretion you can stay safe.
Source: Business Week





An original post by

Sociolatte



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