CorpComms Magazine

The burgeoning popularity of digital media is leaving users wide open to malicious Internet activity, according to a new study by web security company, Barracuda Labs.

With Twitter recently publishing tweeting figures of 50 million per day, the explosion of social media and user-generated content has created a world of new opportunities for Internet fraudsters.

The study identified 31 per cent of all the malware currently assaulting our networks as 'human exploits', targeting social networking sites and search engines with fake software, phishing scams and poisoned search results.

Microsites like Twitter are becoming prime targets for phishing scams, malicious URLs and rogue anti-virus software as usage soars and administrators are powerless to keep users secure. As people flocked to Twitter in 2009, following high-profile celebrity converts, the number of attacks shot up from two per cent in 2008 to 12 per cent by October 2009. One in eight accounts being created 'was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and was subsequently suspended'.

But old habits die hard and spam remains by far the most prolific Internet invader. Of 700 billion emails scanned by Barracuda Labs in 2009, nine out of ten were identified as spam. One per cent was either infected or suspicious and only one in 15 messages was a legitimate email. Pharmaceutical spam tops the league table as the most common junk mail, comprising 37 per cent of the total figure, whilst jewelry spam showed a marked increase in 2009 tallying closely with the rising price of gold.

The study demonstrates that traditional methods of web security, such as file scanning and manual URL filtering are straining to keep up with rapidly expanding Internet activity. The increased availability of high-speed bandwidth and wireless connectivity along with the advancement of portable computers and mobile devices means that the web is being used by many more people much more of the time.

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