Its hardly been a week since Apple launched their new 'music-centric social networking' service, called Ping, and there are reports that it is already been targeted by scammers and spammers, to extract personal information from users. Ping enables iTunes users to create social networks of friends and musicians, where fans can follow their favourite artists, leave comments and also read comments from other fans.

Sophos, an IT security and anti-virus software development firm, have alerted users regarding scams on this network, which come in the form of filling out forms or taking surveys or clicking on malicious links. Some scam messages also promise offering free Apple iPhones to users, if they enter the required details.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, states that while Ping does incorporate basic filtering techniques, they are not strong enough to filter out the spam and scam messages that are being uploaded. However, while the Apple security team is on this security-beefing-up task, users are advised to be careful not to divulge any sensitive personal details or fill out surveys or click on unusual links.

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