• Matthew L. James
• Parliamentary Library

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Image: jm3 / flickr

06 March 2010This paper contends that the hype surrounding the steep rise of social media networking website use has tended to mask the reality of a corresponding growth in online fraud and crime. New Web 2.0 technologies may enable inventive interactivity online, but they also foster innovative ways for those intent on nefarious means to achieve their ends.

Newly popular social media are a case in point where even the short trivia uttered by ‘the masses’ can be used online by less community-minded types to access information for purposes such as identity theft and other online-based crimes. From social engineering techniques to ‘botnets’, their means to pursue anti-social activity are many and growing. Social media is just one possible target/infection vector. Nonetheless, the social media have been very popular and successful of late.

This paper provides a general review of cyber security issues for which the social media is one possible target for criminal activity that is not just purely online, but can become physical as well. For instance, social media sites such as Twitter may be used by thieves to find out when users are away from home in order to break into houses.

Image: jm3 / flickr