Habitual Facebook users are exposed to phishing attacks

A study by Indian-origin researcher Arun Vishwanath, an associate professor in the department of communication at the University of Buffalo, reveals that social media users tend to automatically respond to requests without considering how long they have known them or who else is connected with them.

Vishwanath’s findings also show that social media phishing is the attack vector of choice among cyber criminals and has been implicated in crimes ranging from home invasion to cyber bullying, illegal impersonation of individuals and organisation and espionage.

These scams attempt to trick people into accepting friend requests and gathering crucial personal and financial information from them.