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Apple Ping gets a million users in first 48 hours, along with loads of spam |
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Apple announced that in less than 48 hours since its launch on last Wednesday, over a million users signed up for Ping, its new social network for music, which allows users to follow their favorite artists and friends to discover what music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading.  “One-third of the people who have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping,“ said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “As many more people download iTunes 10 in the coming weeks, we expect the Ping community to continue growing.“ Shortly thereafter, much to the chagrin of users and of course, Apple, spammers cursed the service with iPhone scams as the iTunes-based social network failed to block fraudulent messages posted by spammers. IT security and data protection firm Sophos called on the users of the new Ping musical social network, to guard against scammers and spammers who deluged the system with fraudulent messages. As a service, Ping is a mix of Facebook and Twitter that allows the 160 million iTunes users to build networks of friends and musicians and read comments by other fans. However, Sophos researchers found that Ping was over-run by scams and spam messages, some of which try and direct users into believing they will receive a free iPhone if they complete online surveys. "We're used to survey scams like this being spread far and wide via sites like Facebook, but clearly the lack of filtering on Ping is making it a brand new playground for the bad guys to operate in," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.  "It's ironic that the most common scams on Ping right now revolve around Apple's own iPhone. It's safe to assume that Ping does incorporate some rudimentary filtering to prevent offensive messages from being posted, so hopefully Apple's security team can extend this to also block scam messages and malicious links. In the meantime, though, Ping users should be wary of believing what they read on the new service," he said. Earlier this year, Sophos published research that showed a 70% increase in the number of users reporting spam and malware being spread via social networks, a trend which continues to grow. "As more companies jump on the social networking bandwagon they must think carefully about what they are going to do to make their communities a safe place for users to hang out," continued Cluley. "If they're complacent about these sorts of security risks then users may end up voting with their feet, and find a safer place to spend their online time."
Image: Courtesy apple.com, Sophos |
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