Twitter crime up 20%

By

Illicit activity on Twitter spiked during 2010.

The crime rate on Twitter shot up by 20 per cent last year, after a lull towards the end of 2009.

Twitter crime up 20%

In the second half of 2010, crime on Twitter reached two per cent, against just 1.6 per cent in the first half of the year, research by Barracuda Labs found.

The crime rate was defined as the percentage of accounts created every month that were eventually suspended for malicious or suspicious activity, or otherwise misused.

The study looked at the activity of over 26 million Twitter accounts.

The rise in Twitter crime comes at a time when concerns about social media security are increasing.

“Attackers focus on where they can get the most eyeballs and profit, and today that means social networks and search engines,” said Dr Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda Networks.

“As a community we often point to the need for user education as the missing component; however, the levels of social engineering involved in today's attacks suggest that we must continue to elevate our technological approaches.”

Judge said the research community needed to come up with some innovative defences, which industry should work to push out sooner rather than later.

Free profile security

In line with the research, Barracuda released a free Profile Protector designed to safeguard users from threats circulating on Facebook and Twitter.

The application analyses user-generated content posted to profiles and can block or remove malicious or suspicious content, such as bad links posted on Facebook and Twitter pages and news feeds.

This article originally appeared at itpro.co.uk

Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.
Copyright © ITPro, Dennis Publishing
Tags:

Most Read Articles

NSW Police to embark on $126m IT overhaul

NSW Police to embark on $126m IT overhaul

CBA looks to GenAI to assist 1200 'security champions'

CBA looks to GenAI to assist 1200 'security champions'

Australia's super funds told to assess authentication controls

Australia's super funds told to assess authentication controls

Woolworths' CSO is Optus-bound

Woolworths' CSO is Optus-bound

Log In

  |  Forgot your password?