Get Set for Spam Attack

Social networking traffic to drive high spam volumes in emerging economies

Ever wondered how fake pharmaceutical companies flood your inbox with spam messages, promoting their wonder-cure products? It doesn't stop just with pharma companies. The menace of unsolicited e-mails from various agencies, including bogus online lottery, pours into your mailbox unsurprisingly from the phishing of personal information from various popular social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook and MySpace. These sites are witnessing high net-users traffic, says Deepak Maheshwari, cyber security expert, Microsoft.

With the user-generated content doing the rounds in the online world, the social networking sites that contain personal, professional and social information of an individual are manna on the platter for cyber criminals who take cues and clues of an individual from such sites to carry out their designs on their potential targets for monetary and other gains, he adds.

According to Patrick Peterson of Cisco, "The blending of social media for business and entertainment increases network security troubles and people, not technology, can often be the source." The social networking world is increasingly turning into a happy-hunting ground for cyber miscreants, unleashing tonnes of spam with the phishing of personal identities, targetting fast broad-band growing markets like India. "Employers should embark upon educating employees to avoid comprising themselves online with individual sensitive data," adds Peterson.
A report by Cisco reveals spam volume is set to jump 30% to 40% in 2010 as compared to that in 2009. When compared to US and Europe, the Indian and Vietnamese markets could increasingly come under spam attack with the growing pace of broadband network in such markets. The US is emerging as the largest spam sender in 2010 snatching the distinction away from Brazil.