Minnesota, USA -August 19, 2011 - According to Webroot Software company, 54% of computer users describe themselves as being 'addicted' to a social network.  More than likely, you consider yourself to be a part of that large group; since this is a 'self-proclaimed' survey, it is likely that some responded as 'not having abnormal amounts of social networking' to avoid some embarrassment while others are in denial about their addiction. Some of the most obvious clues are the services for which you are signed up; do you have alerts to your cellphone, a mobile app installed, or even simply check your page several times a day If you are like many, you answer 'yes' to ALL of the above.

Included in this survey was 4,000 users from the U.S., UK, and Australia; interestingly, the main objective of the survey was to gather general facts about habits and behaviors of its users. Obviously there are many attacks through social networks, so Webroot naturally probed people to gain more insight. Over the years the number of attacks related to social networking in the U.S. increased dramatically -from 8% in 2009 to 18% in 2011. The compelling spam links are most likely to be the biggest culprit - we addicts cannot resist hitting those sometimes! We gravitate towards whatever is the most 'interesting' or by whoever we watch the most in posts.

Perhaps after hearing these numbers, you will be less embarrassed to admit if you are a social networking addict. If you are still unsure if you have an 'addiction', sometimes it is easiest to look at 'who' are your friends on the social networking and how many friends you have on it; if there is a large amount of people on your list in which you rarely have a conversation or even people you do not know at all, it is likely that you are addicted. After all, there is no point in having these people if you do not converse; it is likely that you just follow these people to get your 'social networking' fill. In addition, we simply cannot resist a 'pretty' face even if it is entirely unknown to us -another tactic used by spammers, so beware!

Social networking addicts need to be the most cautious when it comes to internet use, simply because most cybercrimes occur through them; the criminals target social networks due to the large pool of victims that are created by successfully hitting even one person. When we are victims, our friends are likely to also be victims -normally depending on the intelligence of the attacker. Even if we are social network addicts, we can be 'smart' about it, so go through your friends list to ensure that you 'know' everyone on the list and be careful about 'what' you click!