Sophos: Apple Ping Has No Spam Or URL Filtering

Internet security firm Sophos has reported that the Ping social network built into Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes is vulnerable to spam and scams. There are 160 million credit card holders on iTunes. You don’t necessarily need to add a credit card to create an iTunes account. That means tons of spammers can join Ping.

“[Ping] implements no spam or URL filtering,” stated Sophos. “[Ping is] drowning in scams and spams.” Unverified accounts have been created on Ping already. There is a fake Ben Folds Five account and a fake Mark Zuckerberg account already.

“It’s ironic that the most common scams on Ping right now revolve around Apple’s own iPhone. It’s safe to assume that Ping does incorporate some rudimentary filtering to prevent offensive messages from being posted, so hopefully Apple’s security team can extend this to also block scam messages and malicious links. In the meantime, though, Ping users should be wary of believing what they read on the new service,” added Sophos.

[Guardian UK]

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