According to a new report by Bromium, cybercriminals heavily rely on social media platforms to spread malware and to exchange illegal resources. Consequently, yearly profits of social media-enabled cybercrime total at least $3.25bn.
The researchers found that instances of social media-enabled cybercrime have soared over the last few years, as a result of which social media are now a “global distribution center for malware.” One in five organizations have had their systems infected with malicious software through social media. One reason why social media platforms are so popular among threat actors, is that they provide 20% more options for infecting targeted systems with malware than is true for corporate or e-commerce websites.