Alright, Myspace has obviously been a huge success. The social networking service attracts all sorts of people which obviously makes it an attractive source for phishing scams. Have a look below to learn more.

“Spammers are using the MySpace brand in a phishing attack on music fans, it is reported today.

In a global reaching campaign the criminals used the name of the popular social networking site in an attempt to phish information from email recipients.

The emails were spammed out to hundreds of thousands of computer users last week enticing them to click on a link to a sham website posing as an online music store.

The message prompts the user to click on a link to MySpace. But, instead of directing the person to the website it takes them to a different site appearing to sell MP3 music and encourages the individual to buy and download tunes. Furthermore, the spammers include a fake boilerplate text in the email to dupe users into thinking it is legitimate.

The site, which only had its domain registered on 5th October, claims to be based in Lappeenranta in Finland but has no connection with MySpace and reports suggest it is a con.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said: “By making the headlines nearly everyday, the MySpace brand has quickly become a household name, with 43 million users now signed up. As a result, it was only a matter of time before spammers jumped on its popularity for illegal purposes.”"

Read the rest of this article HERE.

It is very understandable that scam artists would start setting their sites on Myspace users. To get the biggest “bang for the buck”, they are obviously going to target the most popular services on the web. But, as legitimate as these emails may look, there are a variety of ways to detect phishing scams. We actually created an exclusive mini-lecture strictly on the topic of phishing and we encourage you to sign up for it. It teaches you what to look for and how to detect and prevent phishing scams that come your way.

Tags: Social Networking