Social Media Is ‘Playground’ For Scams: Threat Report

Financial scams and those targeting personal information also dominated, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Gen.

Social media platforms are a wide-open target for hackers, scammers and other cyber criminals, according to the latest fourth-quarter 2024 threat report from Gen, a cybersecurity company that houses brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender and CCleaner.

Gen’s threat report revealed there were 321 threats blocked per second in fourth-quarter 2024 and likened social media to a “playground for scammers.”

Facebook, according to the report, was the social media platform used most by scammers at 56 percent. YouTube was next at 24 percent, then Twitter/X at 10 percent, and Reddit and Instagram tying at 3 percent.

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The top methods scammers employed on social media were:

• “Malvertisting,” which involved deceptive online ads and accounted for 27 percent of the ways people were scammed on social media. These ads spread malware or redirect users to malicious sites, according to the report.

• Phony e-shops accounted for 23 percent of social media online scams late last year. These sites often seize users’ personal and financial information.

• Phishing, which seems to never take a holiday, accounted for 18 percent of online scams.

Financial scams were also prevalent last year from October to December. Mobile phones were the biggest attack vector, according to Gen’s report.

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The leading financial scams included deepfake crypto schemes, mobile banking trojans and spyware/spy loans that offered quick money in exchange for high interest rates, “predatory” repayment deadlines and extortion threats of a user’s personal data.

"We’re continuing to see scam-related threats becoming far more dangerous as they hide, sometimes in plain sight, throughout every aspect of our digital life,” said Siggi Stefnisson, cyber safety CTO at Gen, in a statement. “This quarter we saw them prey on people’s emotions, such as the need to shop on budget during the holidays, the desire to find love during the end of the year, the hope for change during government elections and more. And, unfortunately, this is resulting in people continuing to lose money and control over their personal information. In 2025 we only expect these risks to increase as the rise of AI-powered systems and devices will mark the next frontier for cybercrime.”

Read Gen’s full report here.