BitDefender: Gamers More Susceptible to Spam and Phishing

Posted 04/01/2010 at 8:19am | by Paul Lilly

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Do you consider yourself a gullible gamer? Maybe you should, based on what security firm BitDefender has to say. According to BitDefender, gamers are 50 percent more likely to receive spam and be the target of phishing attacks.

Why so? Apparently gamers are a bit too gung-ho to add anyone to their friends list in order to have more people to play with.

"Users are more likely to accept spammers in their friends list when they are in a social network than in any other online communication environment," said George Petre, BitDefender threat intelligence team leader.

"This fact brings spam and social engineering schemes closer to the user than any e-mail spam or online scam. Moreover, we have seen that in a social applications environment, users can easily be tricked to add spammers to their profile. Thus, we recommend social gaming aficionados use extreme caution before enlarging their circle of friends."

BitDefender came to its conclusion after creating three false accounts. One of them had no photo and little information, one had a pic with a little bit of info, and one added more detail. BitDefender then signed up to a generic interest group and after one hour, the three profiles had 23, 47, and 53 friends, respectively. Doing the same in a games group, however, netted the profiles 85, 108, and 111 friends.

Image Credit: gamerant.com