Cybercrims dump email for irresistible Twitter, Facebook spam

Cybercrooks have quit pouring barrels of spam into email inboxes in favour of hassling marks on social networks as an easier way to make money. The dismantling of remote-controllable armies of compromised PCs, the collapse of some shady affiliate advertising networks, and better spam-filtering technology have all resulted in a …

[Peter2]

Good lord, I didn't think Twitter and Facebook would actually ever achieve anything useful!

Maybe they have a use after all.

[Arctic fox]

Have to say that I agree.

After all Arsebook and Shitter users spend their time spamming one another - seems perfectly reasonable that the Stiffy-pill and Tadger-extension sellers should bug them and not the rest of us.

[Ivan Headache]

Cybercrooks have quit pouring barrels of spam into email inboxes

No they haven't!

One of my accounts gets about 50-60 an hour and my catch-all is full to over-flowing by the end of a week.

[Vic]

Re: Cybercrooks have quit pouring barrels of spam into email inboxes

> my catch-all is full

Well, I think we can see your problem...

Vic.

[Jeebus]

Weird, I've had a Hotmail account for must be 15 years now and get about 10 a week, and I've used it for hundreds of things.

Hopefully they can start hassling those that deserve it instead of those trying to avoid it, moving over to Social Networking is a big step in the right direction. More of them should do this.

[Winkypop]

Finally social media has a purpose

One giant sump for online shite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Finally social media has a purpose

And that's *before* the spam.

[Ray Pasley]

I suspect people who use Twitter and Facebook, are likely to be more susceptible to Spam and other scams. Not saying all users or these Internet services are susceptible, just a higher percentage than the total Internet user base

[Anonymous Coward]

The crims are so dumb

They make it easy for authorities. If you're on Twitter or Facebook you have a mental deficiency anyway.

[FrankAlphaXII]

I am contacting you in respect of a family treasure of ($1 million USD) deposited in my name....

Advance fee fraud wouldn't be as entertaining on Facebook or twitter. I feel sorry for the lads in Lagos....almost.

[Alan Brown]

What decrease?

Nothing statistically relevant on my mailservers. We're still rejecting 99.99+% of attempted email deliveries and still letting too much spam through, according to the users (through they raise merry hell about the 1-2 valid pieces of email we reject each month - usually direct deliveries from home mailservers housed on adsl connections.)

If anything, delivery attempts are still trending upwards every year.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks FB/Witterers! I prefer to use email and now the lowlives are primarily targeting you and not me.

Cheers!