Social networking is no longer just a term in the urban dictionary but a way of life. Sites like Facebook and Twitter connect millions of users around the globe, breaking down traditional geographical barriers with the aid of the Internet. Organizations too have come to realize the value of social media with many companies jumping on the social media wagon. It is not uncommon to find companies running their own corporate blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. This phenomenon can be attributed to the number of followers that social media sites attract.
As of February 2010, Facebook had 400 million users with 70% of users based outside of the US. Asia alone has an estimated 59.6 million users making up about 15% of the global Facebook population. Social networking site Twitter has approximately 240 million users worldwide with an estimated 18.6 million users from Asia.
Countries like Malaysia have an estimated 5 million Facebook users with a majority of users falling between the 18 to 24 year age group . Malaysia also boasts the sixth largest Twitter population in Asia with an approximate 1.1 million users far surpassing countries like China, South Korea and Thailand .
Not the Real McCoy
Through social media, businesses now have increased capabilities to interact with customers, vendors, stakeholders and supporters – the sites act as a platform to allow companies to discuss business issues and even introduce new products – making them invaluable branding and marketing communications tools. However, despite the benefits that social media offer businesses, there is a downside – the increased risk of having a company’s IT system infiltrated by web-based viruses and spyware.
When a user accesses a compromised social media website hosting a seemingly harmless link or video, spyware hosted on site can be activated to lure users to fake websites that trick them into divulging personal details and passwords. There are social media threats aplenty but one of the best-known social-networking viruses is Koobface.
- In 2009, the virus attacked a number of social media sites including MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Koobface sent messages to contacts of an infected account, tricking users into downloading a Trojan from a malicious website. Facebook has also seen other targeted attacks including phishing attacks. Hackers have used the social networking site’s internal messaging system to trick users into giving up their credentials on a fake Facebook log-in screen.
- 2010 saw the ‘Kneber botnet’ gathering login credentials of email systems and social networking sites. Shortened URLs are also a common ploy used by cybercriminals especially in social networks like Twitter. Users can’t preview the actual page of a link within a tweet and tend to trust that the link is legitimate. These shortened URLs usually lead to malicious website that launches malware attacks compromising users’ accounts.
- In June 2010, UK Minister of Parliament Therese Coffey, a member of the conservative party had her Twitter, Facebook and personal blog hacked into. The hacker then proceeded to pose as the politician and posted several sexually explicit messages on those sites.
- One of Facebook’s board members, Jim Breyer also became prey to an attack when his Facebook account was hacked in May 2010. His account was used to send a spam message to more than 2,300 friends in his network.
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