Spammers using social media instead of email

According to security experts, social networking sites, rather than email, are now the most favored platform for spammers to peddle their unsolicited links, as reported by Bloomberg. 

This is partially due to the fact that email spam filters have become so effective that tens of billions of spam messages are now being diverted to social media sites instead, according to Dan Olds of Gabriel Consulting Group.

Mark Risher, chief executive officer of anti-spam software provider Impermium, said, "Social spam can be a lot more effective than e-mail spam. We see a lot of it, and we see it increasing. The bad guys are taking to this with great abandon." According to Risher, as many as 40% of the accounts on social networking sites are actually owned as spammers, and approximately 8% of all messages sent via those sites are spam. This is approximately twice the volume of spam messages sent just six months ago.