By: Fahmida Y. Rashid, eWeek
Cyber-crooks on Facebook are creating fake profiles on the social networking site to launch their scams, according to data released by Barracuda Networks. The fake profiles are overwhelmingly women. About 97 percent of the fake profiles collected by Barracuda Networks turned out to be of women, Paul Judge, chief research officer at Barracuda said in his “FakeBook” presentation at the Kaspesky Lab Security Analyst Summit Feb. 2. Female users account for about 40 percent of real people on Facebook, Judge said. Many of the profiles are automatically generated, using similar photos, and randomly selecting metropolitan cities, a high school or college near the city, and random interests, Judge said. The profiles are aimed at spreading spam or tricking users into joining affiliate programs, all of which translate into real-world money for the scammers. “Fake users can take over your account, spam your wall and feeds,” Judge said.
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