Social Networks Are Becoming a Security Risk

According to a report by Sophos, malware and spam are on the rise on social networks such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.
In the last year, 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites, an increase of 70.6% compared to last year. Furthermore, 36% of users claim they’ve been sent malware via social networking sites, which is a rise of 69.8% from last year.
On the other hand, CEOs of companies are concerned that their employees’ usage of social networks is posing a security risk for their company. Sophos has surveyed over 500 organizations, discovering that 72% of them think social networks are a danger for their company, with 60% of them tagging Facebook as the biggest security risk, followed by MySpace Twitter and LinkedIn .
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, says that Facebook is the biggest threat because it’s the biggest social network out there, but he also places some of the blame on Facebook’s own privacy rules. “When Facebook rolled-out its new recommended privacy settings late last year, it was a backwards step, encouraging many users to share their information with everybody on the internet,” he says.
Interestingly enough (and contrasted to some of the reports we’ve seen lately), Cluley thinks that simply barring access to Facebook is not the solution. “Social networks can be an essential part of the business mix today,” he says, “and the answer is not to bar staff from participating in them but to apply some ’social security’ instead.”