Malware on MySpace...

…and other social-networking sites. It's a growing problem, and of course the more traffic a site gets, the more attractive it is to the creators of deceptive bulletins and "poisonous banner ads," as PC World puts it. ArsTechnica cites a just-released study finding that "83% of adults on social networking sites … admit to downloading unknown files from user profiles, despite not being sure about their contents." The PC World report leads with the experience of MySpace user Robyn who got a bulletin from a friend inviting her to check out some new photos. "She new the friend in real life, so she went ahead and clicked the link." It took her to what looked like a site that downloaded spyware to her computer, and it turned out that the bulletin was from the infected computer of that friend. It had been hijacked to send out bulletins. So, just as I've been saying for a long time to tell your kids to be very careful about what they click on in IMs, the same goes for social sites. Another thing to be alert about is boxes that pop up saying "you have to sign in to do that," when people are already signed in. That's usually a hack that steals people's user names and passwords. PC World says that one in every 600 pages on the social networking sites "hosts some form of malware" (spyware, Trojan software code, etc.). PC World goes on to tell social networkers how to defend themselves and their computers from "money-minded malware authors."