While online predators were quick to recognize the power and reach of social networking to commit their crimes, phishers and identity thieves have not been far behind. In the last few months there's been a surge in things like toxic blogs (fake blogs that try to trick you into visiting a bogus web site), poisened banners (banner ads loaded with spyware), and phishing schemes masquerading as photos from friends on your network.

One recent report found that when it comes to social networking web sites, 1 in every 600 pages is infected with some kind of malware.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that identity thieves have begun targeting sites like MySpace and Facebook. Just like the real-life communities they imitate, targeting members of social networking sites is all a numbers game. Create a variety of attack strategies (they call them intrusion vectors), socially engineer your way into member comfort zones, and hope that if only one or two percent of targets actually fall for the scam, it's still a good days work.