Social media spam is the sort of spam that occurs through a social media site or any kind of website that includes user generated contents like chats, comments and so on. They are considered a great nuisance to the social media users. Social media spammers usually forward links as a part of breaking news or an important information. These links may look absolutely friendly. The victim does not think of it as a threat for even a second. Once the victim clicks on the link he/ she is led to a totally friendly site without realizing that he/she has been spammed. At times, the victim downloads a malicious program by the clicking these sites thereby getting all their hard drives disabled, data removed, login information stolen and getting all the accounts that the PC owner can access hijacked. In fact, social media is the breeding ground for these spams.
Spams from friends
At times, one receives these kinds of spams from his/her friends. In such cases the chances for a person to fall prey to these spams increase. This is because the person does not think of the link as a threat for a second as it has been sent to him/her by a friend. Once a person clicks on the link it is then the person realizes that he/she has become a victim. And, since it’s from a friend they do not understand how to react to it. A spam from a friend is the most common way of receiving it. There could be various reasons for this to happen.
How could this happen?
A spam from a friend can be sent to you intentionally or intentionally. The latter could happen through many ways. Some of which are:
- The spam must have been sent to you during a chat with a friend who has been spammed and the link appears without being known in his/her chats.
- The friend’s account must have been hacked by someone who uses it to forward these spams.
In these cases, the person through whose account dissemination of these links through chats and forwards happens through fail to be aware of these events. So what can be done if your friend bombards you with spams?
What can you do?
If your friend is intentionally sending you spams, which is very unlikely in most cases, one could simply avoid chats with him/her and befriend that person on the social network site. If your friend is not aware of these spams being sent through his profile it becomes your responsibility to inform your friend about it. You should inform him about the spams being sent from him. Before talking about this over a chat session, you should make sure that it’s your friend who is talking with you and not anyone else. In the latter case it becomes evident that the other person’s account has been hacked and he is completely unaware of what is happening. In any case, your task would be to inform your friend and avoid any kind of unknown links.
