Mediaboss Marketing

Given the rise in popularity of social networking, this should come as no surprise: the percentage of email that is spam has dropped slightly, but junk marketing and malware spreading through social networking sites are on the rise.

According to Symantecs Internet Security Threat Report, which was released today, while the volume of malicious attacks is on the rise, spam is less of a factor than it used to be.

Weve seen spam volumes go down in 2011, Sean Kopelke, director specialist solutions for Symantec, told Lifehacker. On a global level, they were 75 per cent of all email in 2011, they were 86% in 2010 So thats down a considerable amount.

While legal action against some major spamming infrastructure providers played its part, the report fingers the shift in our communications habits as a major issue. Were seeing a shift of attackers moving to social network platforms, instead of trying to get people to click on a link through a random name in email, Kopelke said. People have become a little more conscious of that, and I think anti-spam tools have been effective in reducing the impact. So were seeing a movement to social network platforms. Because its a social interaction with friends, people are a bit more relaxed around security processes.

Kopelke also highlighted the widespread misconception that targeted attacks are exclusively aimed at large businesses. So many people think this is a problem for large institutions while a small business isnt going to get attacked. That is simply not true. Organisations of all sizes are getting attacked. Fifty per cent of all attacks were aimed at businesses with fewer than 2500 employees, and 18 per cent of those were aimed at companies with fewer than 250 staff. Many of these businesses are targeted because while small themselves, they are often part of the supply chain connected to much larger organisations. Youre going to look for the weakest chain in that link.

While Facebook, Twitter and other social networking platforms incorporate security measures, a cautious attitude to clicking on links goes a long way. To ensure you dont become a victim of social attacks, check out our guide to staying safe on social networks.

Symantec

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Email Spam Slips As Social Networking Spawns New Security Threats

Consumers are increasingly turning to social networks to access information and manage their health care, according to a new survey by the Health Research Institute at PwC US.

The survey found four in 10 respondents say they research health-related consumer reviews online. On a more personal note, one in three consumers has looked for information from other patients on their experiences with a disease, and one in four has posted their health experiences on the Internet.

The survey polled more than 1,000 U.S. consumers and 124 members of the eHealth Initiative (eHI), a national association of industry organizations focusing on health information and technology and found that one-third of consumers are now using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online forums to find medical information, track and share symptoms and report how they feel about doctors, treatments, medical devices, drugs and health plans.

The results show that online reviews have a powerful impact: 45% of consumers report social media would affect their decision to get a second opinion, while 41% say it would impact their choice of a specific doctor, hospital and health facility. And when it comes to medications, 34% report social media would impact their decision about taking certain drugs.

Since the Internet gives people real-time access to information, its not surprising that 72% of consumers say they would like the ability to schedule doctor appointments via social media channels. And close to half say they would expect a response within a few hours.

Predictably, more than 80% of respondents between ages of 18 and 24 are willing to share health information, and close to 90% of that age group say they would trust the information online. Only 45% of people between the ages of 45 and 64 are willing to share health information through social networking websites.

According to John Edwards, director, healthcare strategy and healthcare business intelligence practice at PwC, patients are using websites like Facebook to share their doctor experiences, express health-care concerns and voice concern when they feel they arent being treated fairly. According to Edwards, positive posts and comments about health-care experiences slightly outweigh the negative sentiment online at the moment.

The use of Internet to research and manage health care is only expected to grow among patients, but the survey found that many doctors, hospitals and insurance providers dont have a robust strategy when it comes to using social media to connect with consumers.

According to PWC, social media activity by hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies was fractional compared to activity on c ommunity sites. The survey found that eight in 10 health care companies had a presence on social media sits, but that community sites had 24 time more social media activity than corporate websites.

The expectations of consumers are changing in how they get health care information and how they use these social networking , says Edwards, and medical providers that dont embrace it are missing an opportunity to engage with consumers.

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New Use for Social Networking: Managing Your Health

Its hard to know which is worse, the dying or the lying.

Four times as many people are dying from a hospital infection called C. diff as a decade ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its the No. 1 hospital-infection killer in much of the nation, including New York. It kills more people than dreaded Staph infections, and about as many as AIDS.

What about the lying? Well, hospital personnel often tell patients and families that antibiotics are to blame. Sorry: The real culprit is inadequate cleaning in hospitals.

C. diff spreads through the hospital on nurses uniforms, wheelchairs, bed sheets, call buttons and other surfaces. It can survive on surfaces for months. Patients touch these surfaces, then pick up food without washing their hands first, and swallow the germ along with their food. Once in the gastro-intestinal tract, C. diff can cause severe diarrhea, sometimes resulting in deadly complications.

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A killer hospitals pretend to fight

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012) Like a police officer calling for backup while also keeping a strong hold on a suspected criminal, immune cells in the brain take a two-tier approach to fighting off a threat, new research from the University of Michigan Health System finds.

For the first time, the scientists managed to capture that reaction in action, showing how certain immune cells locked onto a model of virus-infected brain cells, while also sending signals to neighboring uninfected cells to let them know about the immune attack.

The findings may help research on how the brain fights off viruses and tumors. It also aids the search for ways to harness the immune response to attack and kill brain tumor cells -- or to calm the overzealous self-attack that occurs in people with certain autoimmune diseases.

Published online April 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings illuminate how cells called CD8+ T cells, or "killer" T cells, carry out their police-like role. Pedro Lowenstein, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the U-M Medical School, led the research team.

He explains that the research yields new insight into the nature of the "gasket" that forms between killer T cells and their target cells, i.e., infected -- or tumor -- cells. Killer T cells go after cells when they detect the presence of foreign proteins, called antigens, on the cell surface.

The gasket-like structure creates an area between the two cells called an immunological synapse -- and has been thought of by some scientists as a tight seal. Studies, including previous ones by Lowenstein's team, have suggested that it allows the killer T cell to lock on to its target and bombard it first with molecules called cytokines, and then with chemicals that break down the infected cell and kill it.

But other scientists have shown that when killer T cells are attacking infected cells, the cytokines they release seem to cause a reaction in many neighboring, uninfected cells -- suggesting a very open connection. These latter studies question the role of immunological synapses.

Using a unique live-cell imaging technique developed by the team, the new results show that the gasket connection focuses the T cell attack on the infected cell, but is leaky. This creates a two-tier response when a killer T cell goes after an infection.

"The T cell targets the infected cell preferentially, but it also secretes cytokines that reach a number of other cells in the neighborhood," says Lowenstein. "The immunological synapse fails to restrict how far cytokines can spread."

The research team, including U-M postdoctoral fellow Nicholas Sanderson, Ph.D., made the finding using a live-cell imaging method they developed that allows them to detect how many cells are exposed to the cytokine interferon gamma.

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How does the immune system fight off threats to the brain?

The winning coach was so angry that he let slip the 'f word' in the post-match press conference while the losing coach was happy despite his team continuing its worst start to a season in almost two decades.

In what was a fittingly strange end to a perplexing Sunday afternoon at Parramatta Stadium, rival team bosses Tim Sheens and Stephen Kearney looked at Wests Tigers' 31-30 win over the Parramatta Eels in vastly different light.

Sheens was fuming that his side let slip a 31-0 lead, conceding 30 points in the last 13 minutes to momentarily contemplate the unthinkable.

After inadvertently swearing at the start of his press conference in trying to sum up his frustration and anger, Sheens blasted his side's finish as 'rubbish'.

He said: 'We were very disappointed. 31-0 with 14 minutes to go and you let them score and get within a point. It's just rubbish.

'The only positive is the win.

'We look at the first 60-odd minutes and know we did something good and played well and looked like some sort of a premiership side.

'The last part of it we looked like an A-Grade side.

'The boys understand it. They talked about it on the field.

'It was attitude for sure. We just clocked off, there's no doubt.'

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Coaches undergo bizarre role reversal