Social Media Center

In a recent article, the Financial Times highlights the evils that come along with the benefits of social networking. While social networks connect millions of people around the world, they simultaneously provide an easily-exploited platform for cybercriminals to operate on. This article calls attention to the imminent dangers of over-sharing personal information via Facebook, and then proceeds to describe criminal social media tactics in other digital spheres like email and Twitter.

The Financial Times highlights Websense® for the discovery of a Twitter scam in the days surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden. The scam worked to lure unsuspecting users to a phishing site to capture their login information.

“OMG CNN confirmed they found Osama alive still!!” was one of the hundreds of malicious tweets posted every second that played on the public’s fascination of the death of Osama bin-Laden. The tweets were accompanied by a malicious link using Bit.ly (a link shortening service), making it difficult for users to discern whether the link was legitimate or not.

Remember from our 2010 Threat Report, searching for breaking trends and current news represents a higher risk (22.4%) than searching for objectionable content (21.8%). We urge you to take extra precautions when searching for hot-button topics on the web. You never know if you’re going to click on a malicious link masked by a legitimate site name – it could put you and your entire organization at risk. When in doubt, run suspicious-looking links through AceInsight.com – it’s a free service from Websense that you can use any time to scan URLs for malicious content.

In a recent blog post on CNET, Elinor Mills warns readers of how a major news event like Osama bin Laden’s death has provided an avenue of profit for online scammers. Within hours of the first breaking news, scams and malicious links on Facebook began to rear their ugly heads alongside malware that popped up on sites that were primed and optimized to be in web searches related to bin Laden’s death.

Mills highlights Websense® Security Labs™ research that was conducted on recent attacks surrounding bin Laden’s death. The Labs discovered that a Pakistan-based tweeter who was live-tweeting the U.S. raid garnered over 60,000 followers and as a result of his surge in popularity, found his blog compromised by malicious attacks.

Patrik Runald, senior manager of security research at Websense Security Labs was quoted in the article:

“Visitors to the blog would not immediately have noticed anything as the malware was installed as a drive-by download without the visitor having to do anything.”

Hm. Does this strike you as reminiscent of Lizamoon just earlier last month? Remember, even the most popular sites can fall to malicious attacks at any time. Huge news like the bin Laden death have only made it easier for hackers to find their way to high-traffic sites that may not have the proper protection from modern security threats.

Stay cautious when browsing the web for information, particularly when the topic is a big one. It’s best to know before you go – check out AceInsight.com to make sure that you’re not putting you or your organization’s information at risk.

USA Today just published an article on the imminent dangers of cyber criminals exploiting the massive explosion of news surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden. In the hopes of trapping curious and unsuspecting Net users searching for more information, scammers have been planting various exploit kits and malicious links across the web.

In the article, USA Today highlights breaking research updates from the Websense®Security Labs™. Early this morning, the labs discovered that hackers compromised the site of Sohaib Athar, a man who tweeted the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden. Athar linked to his site from his popular Twitter feed and as his inquisitive, trusting followers clicked through, they were redirected to malware known as the “BlackHole Exploit Kit.” USA Today also draws attention to Websense’s warnings on a scam circulating on Facebook that promotes a bogus “video” of bin Laden’s death.