Social media has affected business organizations in many different ways through the years and these effects caused the development of a rather complicated relationship between the two.

Social media has proven to be an effective marketing tool for businesses. Data collected last year from Fortune’s Global 100 revealed that more than 50 percent of the said companies have Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. On the other hand, social media tools such as social networks have been reported to affect office productivity and also serve as popular media for online threats.

In the same way that businesses use social media, cybercriminals do as well. Just recently, we saw an advertisement for fake point-of-sale (POS) devices in an underground forum where the seller offered a fake POS device for 1,000 EUR.

This time, we found an advertisement for a malicious tool, in a more “mainstream” channel.

The YouTube video above is actually an advertisement for a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) tool. A screenshot of the tool is shown on the video while features and other details such as the price and the URL where to purchase the tool are indicated in the details. (It has since been taken down by YouTube.)

Notably, the video had more than 600 views. Though the number is relatively small, one can’t help but wonder how many of those viewers were enticed enough to visit the given site and to purchase the tool. After all, it’s only US$15.

The said post is just one of the many malware ads in social networks. If anything, the above-mentioned advertisement only goes to show that cybercriminals are using social networks the same way legitimate businesses do to gain “customers” even if the customers in question are other cybercriminals.

For best practices to follow in managing a social network account, you can check our white paper, “Security Guide to Social Networks.”

View full post on TrendLabs | Malware Blog – by Trend Micro

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