According to SecureList in April of 2012 the percentage of worldwide spam email traffic was 77.2% up
2.2 percentage points from March. Our beloved Pinterest has recently fallen
victim to the spam plague taking over the internet. It seems you can't get away
from spam emails, Tweets, Instagram comments, and more. It is overwhelming for
developers to keep up with the security demands of web users. Now that Pinterest
has opened to the public; anyone can make an account and start spamming
Pinterest lovers.
How it works. The
easiest way to get spammed is the spammer edits a popular Pin. For example a cute DIY project that you want
to try out is on your "Following" board, you click it and it takes you to a
non-relevant, spammy site. Pinners fall victim to these acts of spam everyday;
unknowingly downloading Trojans and viruses onto their computers or mobile
devices. A 24-year-old male named "Steve" recently
earned $1,000 per day pinning his ‘products' from Amazon to Pinterest.
"Steve" dubbed himself "Nancy Nelon" who posted pictures of women's fashion that
lead women to Amazon accounts under his name. "Steve" earned money through bot
accounts such as Skimlinks.
Save yourself. Don't fall victim to these acts of trickery! You can outsmart the spam. Look at
the picture below with the original
Skinny Girl, Bethenny Frankel:
This picture was originally pinned by Health.com but was
then edited by a spammer. A spammer does this by switching the link on the
picture. The image below depicts where the spam link is swapped from the
original link; remember the Pin's image doesn't change.
Fight the spam. Comments
on Pins (such as Alexis Marie's) are a red flag for Pinterest spam. When you
see pins that you suspect are spam do not hesitate to report them. Hit the
‘Report Pin' button to the right of the image and the Pinterest crew will take
it from there. What tends to happen is when a Pin is regarded as spam the link
is voided meaning it won't allow you to be redirected anywhere but you can
still see the image (unless it's too spammy for Pinterest). If you're Pinterest
content was reported as spam and blocked accidently follow this link to Pinterest Support and
these instructions:
- Click "Submit a Request."
- Under "What do you need help with?", choose Brands
& Websites > Websites > Blocked Sites
- Include this information:
- The link to your website or blog
- The link to the pin that's resulting in error
- An email will be sent to you with
troubleshooting steps. If these do not help your case respond to the message
asking for further help and your ticket will be forwarded to a specialist at
Pinterest.
Pinterest
has helped many small businesses gain recognition through their pins. Now
with the spam plague taking over Pin boards; business owners have to be
cautious of spammers ruining their reputation. Many business
owners on Pinterest have been reported as spammers when they're content was
unknowingly hacked.
Maybe
opening Pinterest wasn't the way to go.
As the notorious Pinterest spammer, Steve told The Daily Dot: "Pinterest
is by FAR the easiest social network to spam right now. Quite possibly the
easiest ever to spam. It requires almost no work to get started and no money to
invest. You just have to know how the system works and how you can fix it to
your advantage."
Pinterest
is working on fixing these security issues. How do you feel about the growth of spam on Pinterest?
Has it hurt your business?