Companies developing their social media strategy should hire IT contractors to ensure that their firm remains safe from any potential cyber-attack, an expert has suggested.

Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, has highlighted the fact that the popularity of these services makes them a target for those looking to make illicit money from these.

He said that criminals tend to follow the money and many of the major networks have tens or hundreds of millions of users.

"The other thing that's really attractive about social networks in terms of scams is that they are based on trust," he explained.

Mr Ferguson warned that, by breaking this trust, a whole network of contacts - including companies - could be compromised.

Recent research by M86 Security has highlighted the rising number of cyber attacks being targeted through sites such as Twitter, mainly borne through the use of shortened URLs which allow malicious links to be disguised.