The recent months have seen an alarming increase in hackers and spammer targeting online social networks for victims, according to a report initiated computer security company Sophos.

An investigation which focused on social security revealed that members of social networking sites are currently going though a particularly hectic period of aggressive online attacks by computer savvy fraudsters. Sophos said there is as explosion of nefarious software and spam messages aiming at users of sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Sophos research revealed that 57 percent of members of online social networks reported getting spammed in what amounted represented a 70.6 percent jump from the previous year. Nearly 36 percent of users of social network polled said they had received software worms, viruses or other kinds of “malware” in what totaled to a 69.8 percent increase from the prior 12-month period.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said that computer users around the world are increasingly spending time interacting on social networks, time spent sharing valuable and sensitive personal information. He said that computer hackers have spotted where extra money can be made.

According to Cluley, social network websites as well as their millions of members must take measures in order to protect their computers and themselves for organised cybercrime, or run the risk of dangerously exposing themselves to identity theft schemes, malware attacks and an infinite number of scams.

In a bid to counterattack the latest rise in social networking frauds, the world’s largest of the sites, Facebook, announced last month that they were forming an alliance with Internet security expert company McAfee to provide their members with better defence for their computers.

Cluley explained that Facebook is the world’s most important social networking site by a long shot, adding that policing 350 million users was a difficult task.

Facebook members will now be offered a six-month access to McAfee security software free of charge and will enjoy reduced prices for the software if the decide to continue the service.