Hackers have taken advantage of the phenomenal popularity of Google’s new social network by emailing out fake invitations for the service.
Anybody responding to the bogus invites to join Google+ is instead directed to a pharmaceutical website selling Viagra.
A Canadian hacking group called Partnerka is responsible for the ‘amateur’ scam, according to cyber security firm Sophos.
Google+ received across-the-board decent reviews since it was unveiled last week.
So popular has it been, that the social network’s roll-out had to be stopped after just six hours because too many people wanted to join the new service.
Thousands were invited to test Google+ but the internet search giant yesterday admitted this was quickly stopped because of ‘insane demand’.
It was then that Partnerka stepped in and emailed similar-looking invitations, a spokesman for Sophos said.
Graham Cluley said: ‘This group are trying to lure users to a pharmaceutical website by using Google+ invites.
‘The scam is still ongoing and spreading around the world. It is quite amateur at this stage as the link doesn’t even take the user to a Google-looking site from which the hackers could then grab users’ personal details
‘It just takes you directly to the wrong site and most people won’t fall for it – but they should still be careful and check the identity of the person supposedly sending them the invite to join Google+.’
The technology giant has not specified when people will be officially invited to join Google+ again.
The social networking tool is similar to Facebook, allowing people to add profile pictures and connect with friends, but it also connects with Google staple websites like its search engine and Gmail.
But the main difference is that a user’s friends or contacts are grouped into ‘circles’ – rather than just having a giant pool of friends like on Facebook.
To create Google+, the company went back to the drawing board in the wake of several notable failures, including Google Wave and Google Buzz, a micro-blogging service whose launch was marred by privacy snafus.
‘We learned a lot in Buzz, and one of the things we learned is that there’s a real market opportunity for a product that addresses people’s concerns around privacy and how their information is shared,’ said Google spokesman Bradley Horowitz.
Google drew more than one billion visitors worldwide to its websites in May, more than any other company, according to web analytics firm comScore.
But people are spending more time on Facebook – the average U.S. visitor spent 375minutes on Facebook in May, compared with 231minutes for Google.
Google+ seems designed to make its online properties a pervasive part of the daily online experience, rather than being spots where web surfers occasionally check in to search for a website or check email.
