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Infection of the adware called "VideoPlay," which has been spreading through malicious posts and comments on Digg and YouTube, increased 400 percent from January to February, according to Panda Security. Attackers have been posting comments on news stories and videos posted to the social networking sites Digg.com and YouTube.com, claiming users will be able to see videos of celebrities - some of which claim to be pornographic - by clicking a link that is provided, Sean-Paul Correll, threat researcher and security evangelist for Panda Security, told SCMagazineUS.com in an email Tuesday. But, when a user follows the link, they will be re-directed to a page where they will be prompted to download a codec to view the video. The download is the VideoPlay adware - a worm that aims to steal email login credentials and other information stored in a user's browser and then further propagate itself through removable drives.

Facebook has gone a long way to protect the privacy of users on its own site. But what happens when users share their Facebook profiles and friend lists with other sites? Are social networks responsible for defending data its members decide to take elsewhere? Those questions have taken on added urgency following the introduction of tools by leading social networks, including Facebook and News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, that let users interact with their friends on partner sites. Facebook Connect, for example, lets a user instantly share a movie rating on Netflix (NFLX) with all or some of his or her pals on Facebook. Privacy advocates warn that these services pose a whole new set of concerns about how user data are collected and shared among sites on the Web. Using these open-networking tools, thousands of companies can unearth a trove of new data about a visitor-age, gender, location, interests, and even what a person looks like. "I'm wondering if people really understand when they're using Facebook Connect that other sites get access to their whole user profile and social graph," says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. Announced last July, Facebook Connect has already signed up more than 8,000 partner sites, many of which plan to use data collected on Facebook members for their own purposes. Joost, a video-viewing site that integrated with Facebook Connect in December, checks the ages of viewers entered on their Facebook profiles to give its own content partners-CBS (CBS), for example-a better idea of which Joost users are watching CBS programming. Digg.com will let users display their Facebook profile photos alongside comments they make on the social news-sharing site.

Social networkig may seed malware spread. Education is still one of the most successful computer security tools

Websense CTO Dan Hubbard outlines four ways companies can protect their information from threats and compromise on the social Web. 1) Most Web Posts on Blogs and Forums are Actually Unwanted Content (Spam and Malware) As more and more people interact with each other on sites allowing user-generated content, such as blogs, forums and chat rooms, spammers and cybercriminals have taken note and abuse this ability to spread spam, post links back to their wares and direct users to malicious sites. Websense research shows that 85 percent of all Web posts on blogs and forums are unwanted content - spam and malware - and five percent are actually malware, fraud and phishing attacks. An average active blog gets between 8,000 and 10,000 links posted per month; so users must be wary of clicking on links in these sites. Click here to find out more! Additionally, just because a site is reputable, doesn't mean its safe. Blogs and message boards belonging to Sony Pictures, Digg, Google, YouTube and Washington State University have all hosted malicious comment spam recently, and My.BarackObama.com was infected with malicious comment spam.

How will Barack Obama's administration affect IT spending in the trenches, where technology decision makers are dealing with strapped budgets and a shaky economy? President Barack Obama's official campaign Web site is a model of how 21st century technology tools can boost a candidate's popularity, building significant buzz via blogs, IM applications and e-merchandising. And Obama's campaign wasn't confined to his own site either, because he chose to expand his presence on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Eons and BlackPlanet. His images and words also constantly popped up at outlets such as Flickr, Digg and YouTube. All these efforts made Obama an accessible, immediate and appealing figure to both younger voters and older ones who regularly connect to the Internet. Ultimately, they energized his campaign and helped secure a decisive victory for the nation's first African-American president. Certainly, Obama enters the White House with a reputation as one of the most-if not the most-tech-savvy chief executives ever. For starters, he's created the position of a federal chief technology officer to oversee the future of information technology for government agencies.