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Earlier this month, Britney Spears revealed to her 3.7 million Twitter followers that she was part of a global conspiracy to dominate the world with a secret shadow government run by Freemasons.

At least it appeared that way, until Twitter posted a message stating her account had been hijacked. It wasn't the first time the pop-star's account had been taken over by a fraudster.

But Spears isn't the only social media user being targeted by hackers, according to security researchers from Symantec Corp. 2009 has seen a major increase in the number of attacks launched on social networks, and the quality of the attacks has also improved to claim more victims.

Social networking is an environment that invites exploitation because of users' inherent trust, says Paul Wood, senior analyst with MessageLabs Ltd.

"When you're walking down the street, you're very aware of the risks around you. But when you're online, you have no sense of the level of danger," he says. "Especially if it's a message from someone you know, it's much more difficult to detect a hoax."

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook also prompt users to adopt sometimes-risky behaviours.

URL shortening services have become popular because they let users stuff links into a 140-character message allowed by Twitter. But the problem with that is users often don't know where the link ultimately leads them, says Zulfikar Ramzan, a technical director of security technology and response at Symantec.

"It will take some time for people to build up their Internet street smarts," he says.

Third-party applications used on social networks could also be avenues of attack for hackers, Wood says.

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