denotes premium content | Feb 8 2012 
News
posted 31 Jan 2007
Social media
Is Web 2.0 helping cyber criminals?
By Jessica Twentyman
Cyber criminals are making their scams more convincing by personalising them and developing specific attacks against groups of users, according to research published this week.
The National Cyber Security Alliance study (NCSA) found that 57 per cent of users of social-networking sites, such as Myspace.com, reveal critical information that they would not normally divulge. And despite awareness about potential security threats, a surprising 83 per cent of respondents said they download files from other profiles even if they are unsure of the content.
Raimund Genes, chief technology officer of security software vendor Trend Micro, said concerns such as copyright and online harassment have been replaced by targeted threats fuelled by financial gain. “In today’s ‘threat landscape’, the motives are most frequently about monetary gain. As seen from the NCSA study, a large majority of social-networking site users are still happy to share their personal details with strangers. This will result in scams for financial profits,” he said.
