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Guard your social profile. Privacy: How to protect yourself from data brokers | Prism Money | Analysis & Opinion. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse | Empowering Consumers. Protecting Privacy. Federal Trade Commission. Criminals target mobile devices and social networks. 5 April 2011Last updated at 05:13 Facebook applications can provide the personal information needed to create a targeted attack Smartphones and social networking sites are likely to become the next big target for cyber criminals, according to a security industry report. Symantec's annual threat analysis warns that the technologies are increasingly being used to spread malicious code. Users of Facebook, Twitter and Google's mobile operating system, Android, are said to be particularly vulnerable.
However, the number of attacks remains small compared to other online crimes such as e-mail phishing. According to Symantec, known vulnerabilities in mobile operating systems rose from 115 in 2009 to 163 in 2010. In several cases, the security holes were exploited and used to install harmful software on Android handsets - suggesting that criminals now view smartphone hacking as a potentially lucrative area .
Rogue applications Continue reading the main story 2010 Internet Security Threat Report.