With more and more work being done on social networks, handheld wireless devices, email and text messages, opportunities for cyber criminals to attack businesses are increasing. According to Cisco's annual report on security, the impact of social media on computer security "cannot be overstated . . . Simply put, social media has been a tremendous benefit for the creators of online scams."

A major reason that social media provide such easy targets for the scammers is the fact that users of social media place unwarranted trust in the safety of online communities such as Facebook. Facebook's active user base, the report points out, grew from about 100 million to 350 million in 2009, presenting a vast and easy target for cyber criminals. With more and more individuals blending their personal with their business activities in a community like Facebook, it is relatively easy for a scammer to pose as a trusted friend or colleague and lure a victim to a malware-infected site or to pay for some fake remedy or other.

As an example, the Koobface worm first appeared on Facebook in 2008 and has now infected, approximately three million computers, many victims snared through Twitter. Koobface is an anagram for Facebook. It sends messages to "friends" of already infected users, dierecting them to a link where they are prompted to download an update to their Adobe Flash player. Downloading and executing the file infects their system, blocking their access to security web sites, among other undesirable consequences.

Cisco recommends vigilance and adopting a less trusting attitude toward "friends" in social network communities, avoiding easy-to-guess passwords, keeping up to date with anti-virus software and security patches, and using the latest firewall and other security products.

One sobering statistic in the report is that one in every 600 PDFs on the Internet is infected with some form of malware.   

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