Scammers will turn their attention to social network sites. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Scammers will turn their attention to social network sites. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Facebook users have been warned they will be among targets of a huge increase in cyber crime next year.

Internet scammers are increasingly hacking into personal profiles on social networking sites to defraud the account holder's friends, said one expert.

David Hall, from internet security company Symantec, said most people were wise to email scams but could let their guard down if the con appeared to come from someone they knew.

"They're preying on trust, and that's going to grow a lot more in 2010. It's a lot more effective than just sending out spam."

Aucklander Ella Wilks, 24, had her Facebook profile hacked into this month.

Under Wilks' name, the hacker contacted her friends with a link and a message telling them to check out a video of them she had found.

"I got a text from a friend saying, 'I think your Facebook account's been hacked', because apparently I sent her about 30 wall posts in about 30 minutes," said Wilks.

Most of her friends were smart enough not to click on the links, which would probably have infected their computers with malicious software known as "malware".

Hall says the scam was probably called Koobface, where clicking on the link would take victims to a fake YouTube site.

Before they watched the video, another fake box would pop up asking them to update their Flash Player.

If they clicked on that, their computer would become infected with a keystroke logger, which would record every character they typed to find out their passwords.

Those passwords could be used to access bank accounts and other personal information.

Another Facebook scam saw hackers break into accounts and send messages to friends asking for help, said Hall.

The most common version of the story involves being stuck in London and needing $600.

After being alerted by friends Wilks immediately changed her password, but Facebook had suspended her account. Before she was allowed back in, she had to prove there was no malware on her computer.

"Facebook must be aware of it and can see when people are being spammed."

Facebook has filters to screen spam and malware, but some attacks still break through. A spokesman said fewer than 1 per cent of members were successfully attacked.