SOCIAL NETWORKS SPAM DANGERS

I pay a lot of attention to security and our regular readers are used to that. This refers to both the security of investing, and online security. For example, we have posted news about phishing mails recently (http://www.hyipnews.com/news/17490/PHISHING-ACTIVITY-DAY/). Spam is not just an intrusive mailout anymore. This is a headache and real danger. Starting with viruses and ending with phishing mails. Spammers and fraudsters constantly try to bypass filters and deceive recipients so that they would open a file by clicking on link and actually voluntarily swallowed the bait. Therefore this bait constantly changes, it is sent in different shapes and therefore I find it very important to know about it. You must know how something that can not be touched looks. And now I'll show you a couple of new examples of such dangers.

We all know what a social network is. This is a community of people' profiles, which aim at providing specific information. For example, personal contact information (Facebook) or business information (LinkedIn). The services of social communication such as Twitter are very popular too. Even we have Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/hyipnewscom), and I have already said about the social networks in HYIPNews Newsletter 91 (http://www.hyipnews.com/news/17493/HYIPNEWS-NEWSLETTER-91/). There is a social network of HYIP investors in HYIP world! And obviously fraudsters would not be fraudsters if they didn't try to intrude.

They diligently forge their bait, passing it off as letters, which you will trust and filters will let them pass. Spam filters are now probably waging war trying to define pseudo-social messages. The fact is that if you get a letter from such service, you are likely to click on a link without thinking. And you most likely do it constantly.

For example, last weekend I received an invitation from Facebook and LinkedIn. First letter was likely to be real, although I did not click on link. The second one was an absolute fake, because the email address from which it came had nothing to do with this service. I decided to post the screenshots of these letters just in case, so that you can clearly see what they look like (they can be viewed in comments on this news below). You probably realize that such letters can be dangerous. I have carefully examined each of them, but didn't realize what the trick was. Visually links look normal (even a fake mail from LinkedIn). But anyway I decided not to click on them.

You should remember that almost all notifications from social services are duplicated within these services. Meaning the invitation of friendship, for example, can be accepted not only by clicking the link provided, but directly from your account. After receiving a mail informing that someone wants to be friends with you, you can simply log into your account and see it. There is no need to click on anything in a mail. For example, you can receive a mail from Twitter saying that someone wrote you or added as a friend. Again, this information can be seen by opening Twitter using your proven link and logging into your account there. Be careful.

Alice Wilson, HYIPNews.com