Symantec: In one way or another, "spam" has always been present in our electronic daily life, from junk mail and unwanted phone calls to today's spam emails, which appear with great frequency. In recent years, it has been observed that the volume of spam emails σταδιακά έχει μειωθεί σε σχέση με τα υψηλότερα επίπεδα του παρελθόντος, γεγονός το οποίο έκανε αρκετούς να αναρωτηθούν εάν η αγορά των spam έχει αρχίσει να καταρρέει. Η Symantec υποστηρίζει ότι αν και η αγορά έχει αρχίσει να υποχωρεί, ωστόσο απέχει πολύ από την κατάρρευση και έχει ξεκινήσει η μετdevelopment her.
In the recent report "Symantec Internet Security Threat Report"It was discovered that spam related to emails of businesses declined marginally by 3%, by 30 billion spam emails per day 2012 to 29 billion 2013. This includes different types of spam, from popular diets, pharmaceuticals, adult-related spam and dating sites, which can be incredibly annoying, to more dangerous malicious spam, containing attachments that carry malicious software.
The second kind of spam, used to transport malware, is becoming more and more popular. Many spammers who previously used botnets to spam spam, now have focused on creating different kinds of malware or running Phishing scams. Cyber-scammers, seeking to spread malware, are willing to pay someone with a spam bot to install malware on large computer networks. For example, in the past year, ten million customers in the UK had been attacked by Cryptolocker malware a mass spam campaign. Clearly, spam is still, in some cases, profitable for cyber criminals and poses a threat from which users and businesses need to be protected.
The spam in the Social Media Networks
Although everyone is familiar with spam via email, however, the spam that exists today is not just by email. As millions of Internet users use social media and providers have improved in spam detection and filtering, spammers turned to social networks where they were more likely to act without locating them. In fact, the report "Nexgate's 2013 State of Social Media Spam Report"Discovered 1 at 200 posts of social media is spam and that 5% of all social media applications have some kind of spam. It has already been noticed that spammers have penetrated almost every community of social media, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, the Snapchat even his mobile dating app tinder.
What is the driving force that leads to increased spam on social networking sites? The affiliate marketing and motivation it uses leads users to respond to surveys, buy products and material goods. Social networks provide an ideal shelter for spammers because of their huge impact, as a post can be seen by thousands, compared to an email that will reach a single user at a time. In addition, they are difficult to detect and may include everything from left-wing with fake ones accounts up to applications containing spam.
Initially, many spammers will rely on fake ones accounts για να χειριστούν το spam, αλλά recently έχει παρατηρηθεί ότι όλο και περισσότερα spam προέρχονται από accounts belonging to real users. Accounts, featuring simple users and public figures, have been exposed and carried spam, which may indicate a growing market of online credentials between spammers and can act as real users.
Obviously, spam is here to stay, but you can use these tips to help protect yourself and yours network:
Obviously spam has come to stay, but with the help of the following tips you can protect yourself and your network:
- Make sure you use anti spamming products such as email Symantec Email Security.cloud
- Never open, click or reply to anything that looks like spam
- Always remember: If something sounds too good to be true, then it is
- Make sure the password you use in all social media is powerful and unique
- If available, enable two factor authentication as an additional security measure
- If you click on a link and suddenly find yourself on a social network page asking for your login information, do not type - it's a phishing attempt
- Continue updating at browser to ensure you have the latest security patches
