Spam Using Social Networking Sites

We have seen numerous times how spammers use legitimate websites to trick unsuspecting users on clicking their landing page. Again, Facebook, Windows Live Spaces and Friendster are just among those social networking websites we have observed lately. We have seen a spam campaign that contains a Facebook link appended with a suspicious link, the URL format looks like this:

http://www.facebook.com/l/<random alphanumeric>;<spam link>

The spam campaign usually promotes the Canadian pharmacy programs.

We have also seen another social networking website Friendster.com blog being used to host pharmaceutical programs, again selling sex enhancement drugs.

Space.live.com is another free social networking service used by spammers. In this case, the message contains a clickable image that points to spaces.live.com promoting pharmaceutical products.

As the use of social networking website increases, spammers will continue to find ways to exploit these services. Not only does it look appealing to most average internet users but is also effective in bypassing spam filters.