Security vendor expects malware to rise by 23 per cent in 2012 due to increased attacks on android devices and social networks

Financial services company, Westpac Group, has partnered with Internet security solutions provider, BitDefender, to offer customers a free one-year subscription to BitDefender Internet Security 2012.

A creative scheme that charges people via SMS for what should be a free copy of Adobe Systems' Flash player is apparently undergoing a test run on a Russian social network, according to security vendor Bitdefender.

An unpatched Yahoo Messenger vulnerability that allows attackers to change people's status messages and possibly perform other unauthorized actions can be exploited to spam malicious links to a large number of users.

The recent spam attack that planted pornographic images on Facebook was not the work of Anonymous, a security researcher said today.

Hackers apparently can be just as careless as their victims.

Android smartphone users can take some commonsense precautions to protect their personal data from being stolen -- important advice considering an app developer purports to know how to take the information in under 60 seconds.

With Twitter recently breaking the 100 million mark for active users worldwide, and on track to add a further 26 million by the end of 2011, staying secure on the social network is also becoming increasingly important.