An apparent Facebook scam which could serve as a gateway to credit card fraud has been described as a sign of things to come.

Luis Corrons, technical director at Panda Security, said that using social networking sites to steal personal data is becoming "more and more popular" among criminals.

The tech firm's analysis and detection unit PandaLabs, announced last week that it had discovered a fake Facebook site that was deceiving users into entering their genuine passwords.

Fraudsters can perpetrate ID theft and take out credit cards in their victims' names after capturing personal data of this kind.

Mr Corrons said: "The spoof Facebook is no longer available but we don't have any doubt that bad guys are already working on some other pages like that one. It was very convincing."

He added: "The more people who use a platform, the web, or any other means, the more likely they are to be used by bad guys. They go where the money and people are."

Figures show that Facebook is currently the second most-used website in the world.