Thursday, December 29, 2011

Criminals Used Affiliate Marketing Sites in Majority of Facebook Scams in 2011

Cyber-criminals are no longer just using Facebook for identity theft or phishing scams. Now, they are also using the social-networking platform to defraud affiliate businesses, according to security researchers. Unsuspecting users are tricked into clicking on links posted on Facebook to go to affiliate sites where they fill out various surveys. The surveys generated affiliate payments for the scammers and wind up costing the legitimate businesses that pay those fees, Commtouch said. The vast majority, or nearly 74 percent, of Facebook attacks in 2011 were designed to lead users to fraudulent marketing affiliate and survey sites, the report found.

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