Cybercriminals targeted SMBs and marketers who were trying to increase their online presence in the second quarter of the year, revealed Trend Micro Q2 2013 Threat round-up report. Influence in the social media depends largely on the number of followers an entity has. Cybercriminals created sites which lured users by the idea of acquiring a huge number of followers in a very short amount of time and with almost no effort at all.
These sites offer not only followers, but also retweets and likes for particular posts indicated by the customer. The required payment would depend on the number of followers, retweets, or likes preferred. The payment process requires the customer to transact via payment sites like interkassa.com and ligpay.com (for mobile users). In the end, no followers, retweets, or likes is provided to the customer, only the risk of information and money theft,” said Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, India & SAARC, Trend Micro.
In response to compromise incidents, LinkedIn, Evernote, and Twitter rolled out additional security measures, which notably included two-step verification measures. Instagram scams showed that cybercriminals are targeting SMBs and marketers who wish to increase their online presence. Such scams offer “free followers” or use professional looking sites where they can supposedly buy followers in bulk. The tactic of selling followers is not new though. Cybercriminals simply turned to different avenues outside Twitter and Facebook. Interestingly, this threat appeared, while social media sites found ways to monetize the services they offered.
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