According to Con Mallon, director of regional product marketing at Norton, it is "very, very difficult to determine" what is a social network attack.
"Because it's coming through from a friend, acquaintance, et cetera, it gives it that level of authenticity, that level of trust," Mr Mallon observed.
He added, however, that we are now "aware of looking out for dodgy looking attachments or spelling or grammar mistakes that kind of give the game away" when it comes to emails.
This is because, he explained, education provided by the IT security industry over the last few years is "helping people".
Mintel claimed recently that the most popular reason for using social media is to keep in touch with friends.
Indeed, the firm found that 78 per cent of consumers used social networks for this purpose in June 2011.
Posted by Simon Jones
