Cybersecurity Challenges in Social Media Erdal Ozkaya

4.2.1
 
Worms 
There have been worms created by hackers that have been used to create botnets using 
the devices of social media users. One of these worms is the notorious Koobface 
("W32.Koobface | Symantec", 2018). This worm is said to be propagated through social 
media platforms and it enlists the devices it spreads to a network of zombie computers. The 
infected devices are used to further spread the worm to other computers without the owner’s 
knowledge. Once joined to the network, the infected computers are used in DDOS attacks or 
to give the hackers extensive computing power to carry out other types of attacks.

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4.2.2
 
Targeted phishing attacks 
There is an increase in the number of reported cases of users that have been contacted 
by people that used fear, anxiety, or greed to get them to part with some money (Harrison, 
Svetieva, and Vishwanath, 2016). There are also reports of users that have been lured into 
signing in to Facebook through phishing emails to attend to an urgent issue. The links 
provided by the emails have been said to been redirecting users to a website with the URL 
fbaction.net, where once they entered their credentials, their accounts would within minutes 
get compromised. There have been many other websites that users have been redirected to. 
To counter this, Facebook has been blacklisting many of them. This, however, remains to be 
a big threat since it is very easy for one to create a domain and also to replicate Facebook 
emails to be sent to users in the phishing emails. 
4.2.3
 
Data leaks 
Social media platforms are built with the intention of getting users to share lots of 
information about their personal lives. Users are carelessly doing so and at times they have 
been sharing information that can put themselves and the organizations they work for at risk. 
There are users that have shared details about undergoing projects in organizations, sensitive 
financial details, internal organizational changes, secret organizational scandals, and other 
private details about their personal and professional lives. This user-borne threat continues to 
flourish hackers with a never-ending supply of sensitive information that they can use to 
actualize an attack.