December 30, 2010

Shifting focus of cybercrooks: A warning to Social Media and mobile gadget aficionados

A post of CNN today discussing a just released report of McAfee today for a shift in the focus of cybervillains and hackers towards social online location sites, social networking sites and Apple’s iPhone. The same report also suggests that the volume of email spam has been substantially reduced (this is something I can also confirm from personal experience: from about 100 spam emails my average went down to 30 the recent months).
Regarding the new hacking threat of the socially networked I am not surprised at all, considering that the social media is now the hot stuff. People can however easily minimize such threats by just using their brain a little bit. Nothing is more interesting for example for burglars than knowing where people are exactly at every moment of the day and pedophiles appreciate information on the whereabouts of kids. The active and empowered Internet user must learn also the downside of the social media revolution and reconsider (or start thinking about) personal information and privacy from the safety perspective.