Porn spam to social networks rising rapidly

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 08:58

Business IT - Security

The adult industry has tapped into the increasing popularity of social networks, with a rapid rise in porn spam now bombarding sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and their subscribers, with everything from provocative images to hidden malware.

In its latest report, BitDefender says there’s been a rapid increase in using social networking sites and micro-blogging platforms to ply porn spam via the likes of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

According to BitDefender researcher, Alexandru Catalin Cosoi, 15 percent of Twitter traffic is now porn spam, with the porn spammers registering accounts, posting up a provocative image as their avatar, following unsuspecting Twitter users and then, begin sending shortened URLs that link to pornographic material.

Meanwhile, on Facebook and MySpace, porn spam accounts for seven percent and 10 percent of total traffic, respectively, Cosoi says.

Cosoi says that BitDefender’s research shows, more broadly, that while email was the prime medium via which to distribute porn spam, spammers have taken note of users' switch to social networking and micro-blogging websites and are targeting them in other ways.

“Not all porn spam contains links to inappropriate images or websites. Some porn spam contains links that facilitate the connection for downloading of malware.

“Such malware can be activated at the point of infection then wait dormant for instructions to activate at a later date or hide until activated by a set of keywords, Cosoi warns.

And, Cosoi cautions that there's always going to be malware that makes use of spam, “especially porn," and that spammers are "not looking to infect people’s computers with a virus, malware or Trojans,” but, he adds, “they actually have a business and they are using spam to promote it."