In an effort to measure and analyze normal user behavior on Twitter and identify features that are strong indicators of illegitimate account use, Barracuda Networks analyzed more than 25 million Twitter accounts, both legitimate and malicious as part of their 2010 Midyear Security Report.
The data revealed the following:
- More people are coming online, and die-hard Twitter users are tweeting more; even casual users of the social network are becoming more active. With more users online, malicious activity increases.
- Of Twitter’s users, only 28.87 percent are “true Twitter users.” A true Twitter user is defined as someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times. This is an increase compared to 21 percent in January.
- Thirty percent of all Twitter accounts have never once tweeted.
- The Twitter Crime Rate for the first half of 2010 was 1.67 percent. Twitter Crime Rate is defined as the percentage of accounts created per month that were eventually suspended for malicious or suspicious activity, or otherwise misused.
“Our study shows that attackers have serious efforts devoted towards getting in front of the millions of users that are connecting on social networks like Twitter,” said Dr. Paul Judge, chief research officer and VP at Barracuda Networks. “Therefore, we continue to analyze their approaches and build new techniques to find them and protect users.”
Labels: social media, social media tools, Twitter