The Hindu : Front Page : Beware Net’s baddies

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Sunday, Apr 27, 2008
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Beware Net’s baddies

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The so-called social networking sites on the Internet — Orkut, MySpace, YouTube, etc, — where lay users share their likes, dislikes, hobbies and habits with thousands of likeminded people, many of them unknown, have a downside: the Net’s baddies now seem to have made such sites the focus of their attacks, using techniques like phishing, a type of email fraud which aims at stealing a person’s confidential information, even his total identity.

The latest Internet Security Threat Report, released by security management specialist Symantec, holds out a special warning for India-based fans of social networking on the Net, who number between 5 and 6 million and spend anything from 15 to 75 per cent of all spare time in this activity. Such sites are easy to spoof, leading trusting lay users to share personal information with bogus operators, the report says. In effect, cyber criminals have moved subtly from targeting your computers with worms and viruses, to targeting YOU.

“Attackers look for the weakest link — and right now that is social networking,” says Prabhat Singh, Symantec’s Director, Security Response in India.

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