- Image via CrunchBase
Spammers jumped out the gate quickly with survey scams aimed at users of Ping, Apple‘s new iTunes social network.
Ping launched Sept. 1 with the goal of creating a social network for the more than 160 million users of iTunes. However according to Sophos, the service has been hit with a barrage of scams and spam messages in the days since the launch, including some seeking to get users to fill out online surveys in exchange for a free iPhone.
“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, in a statement. “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.”
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