Using instant messenger? Read this then.

Thank God, I don't use instant messengers. At the start of my internet career, I used Yahoo IM extensively. Then, as and when I started getting busy, those friends became an annoyance.

The reason for my gratitude towards God is the news I am hearing about several attacks on IMs.

Chat networks are the hot new venue for virus and malware authors. A new study says that malicious attacks over IM networks are up almost 80 percent compared to last year.

Akonix, which just released the statistics over the weekend, is in the business of developing IM “cleaning” services so you might want to take the numbers with a grain of salt, but still, according to Akonix’s survey there have been 226 exploits for IM networks this year, which is just over one a day.

So, what is the moral behind this story?

“As with everything else in the online world, make sure you trust your IM contacts before clicking a link or downloading any files sent over IM”.