Some older techniques, however, never go out of style. Peck said that titillating images are still a go-to for many malware pushers and spammers. One common trick is to "tag" as many people as possible in a sexually suggestive image to draw large numbers of clicks on a "check out this website I model at" link.

The photo-tagging trick, according to Peck, is particularly effective because of the follow-on effects. Such a picture shows up not only in the news feeds of the people tagged, but in the news feeds of many of their friends -- creating a broader potential slate of victims.

"All the little Facebook 'Like this' or 'share this' buttons that are on websites these days -- that's just a link. You can make anything point to that," Peck said. Unscrupulous users, he noted, frequently conceal a "like" button beneath a link to a racy video or something similar in order to drive up their number of "likes" on Facebook.

Affiliate campaigns too, are "huge" among Facebook spammers, the Barracuda research scientist told the SOURCE audience. "Affiliate campaigns are almost like pump-and-dump websites, [in] how quick they come up and go down," Peck said. Bogus promotions, promising prizes in exchange for shares or "likes," often attract large numbers of clicks. Despite lasting mere days, skillfully run campaigns can get a brand in front of up to 600,000 users.