Spammers curse new Apple Ping social networking service with iPhone scams

Sophos, the IT security and data protection firm is advising users of the new Ping musical social network to be on their guard against spammers and scammers who have already deluged the system with dodgy messages.

Ping was only unveiled earlier this week and is the Apple take on a Facebook meets Twitter idea. The hybrid concept also revolves around sharing music and is available via iTunes. Apple hopes that it will enable them to move in on the social networking market while also offering 160 million iTunes users the ability to recommended music to others.

Unfortunately, the downside of this has been the relentless barrage of scams and spam messages, some of which purport to offer a free iPhone in return for people completing an online survey. Sophos has already warned of social networks being one of the main areas of online activity that causes the spread of spam and malware. Research published by them earlier in the year pointed to a 70 percent increase in this area alone.

"We're used to survey scams like this being spread far and wide via sites like Facebook, but clearly the lack of filtering on Ping is making it a brand new playground for the bad guys to operate in," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

"It's ironic that the most common scams on Ping right now revolve around Apple's own iPhone. It's safe to assume that Ping does incorporate some rudimentary filtering to prevent offensive messages from being posted, so hopefully Apple's security team can extend this to also block scam messages and malicious links. In the meantime, though, Ping users should be wary of believing what they read on the new service."

"As more companies jump on the social networking bandwagon they must think carefully about what they are going to do to make their communities a safe place for users to hang out," continued Cluley. "If they're complacent about these sorts of security risks then users may end up voting with their feet, and find a safer place to spend their online time."