Spam targeting social networking sites

BitDefender warned users about a new wave of spam targeting social networking sites including YouTube. In the attack, certain YouTube features are exploited in order to build a list of users who will receive the spammed message. The portal allows users to exchange messages and invite others to subscribe to certain video channels. These functions are exploited in order to crawl user profiles pages, gather lists of potential victims and send mass e-mail messages to them.

“BitDefender believes that Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube and MySpace are rapidly becoming the next preferred malware spreading platform,” said Daniel Raduta, BitDefender antispam researcher. “Although BitDefender offers top notch protection against spam, we advise all consumers to keep their anti-spam shields activated no matter that sites they are surfing.”