Whilst social networking sites may, at first glance, appear to be non-profit websites, they can in fact generate vast incomes for their owner through advertising revenues.
Therefore, it is not surprising that owners are constantly looking to upgrade their sites, both in terms of appearance and functionality.
The Trouble With Functionality
One popular such function is the ability for users to add their own applications to their profile pages.
Typically these tend to be calenders, small games, animations, etc.
The downside of such functionality, however, is that it makes it extremely hard for the site administrators to police every piece of code running on their sites.
This presents an opportunity to the less than honest, a place where their spyware, trojans and viruses can live before either being downloaded to their victim’s own computers or posted onto their profile pages.
Trust = Vulnerability
Users of social networking sites, for the most part, would appear to be a trusting group of people.
They don’t expect to be scammed by other members and that can often be their downfall as it leads to lapses in security consciousness.
Avoid This Scam
Key to avoiding this type of social networking scam is up to date security software.
Current versions of anti-virus and anti-spyware products should provide a strong first line of defence against malware and other gremlins that may try to enter your system.
As ever, always be cautious when downloading applications from unknown or untrusted providers.
Also, remember that just because an application claims it originated with a certain company or site doesn’t make it true.
This is just one of five posts in a series on social networking scams.
Read the rest here -
- Part 1 – The Fake Identity
- Part 2 – Malware
- Part 3 – Profile Hacking
- Part 4 – Identity Theft
- Part 5 – Spam