With the security news in overdrive last Thursday and Friday, abuzz with reports of the DDoS attack on Twitter and Facebook (here’s an update on the motivation behind the attack, just in case you haven’t seen it), you may have missed some of the other security stories that ran late last week.

On that note, there was an interesting piece in The Washington Post, giving an inside look at how online con artists are working even harder than usual to land profits during the economic downturn.

According to the article, Americans – described as the “easiest prey” for Nigerian scammers – continue to lose millions of dollars each year to cyber crimes like Nigerian 419 schemes (one of the oldest tricks in the book that, somehow, continues to dupe online victims).  It's worth a read through – if nothing else to remind us of what we’re all up against each and every time we go online.