iEntry 10th Anniversary RSS Newsletter Advertising
Visit Twellow.com
Text: Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size | Print Print Article | Share: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Post to Twitter Post to Facebook
1 commentThursday, September 24, 2009

Watch Out for the Twitter Worm

Latest Security Issue to Plague Social Media

There are numerous reports of a new Twitter worm that steals your log-in information and spreads its evil cause. The worm comes in the form of a direct message from someone you may know, and maybe even trust.

If you get a direct message saying something along the lines of "rofl this you on here? http://videos.twitter.secure-logins01.com," don't click it. The message will take you to a log-in page that looks like Twitter's log-in page, but it is of course a phishing scam, where your info is jacked and your account becomes the next participant in spreading the worm.

Unsurprisingly, this issue has not been addressed by Twitter on their blogs, just as that huge exploit that was discovered last month wasn't. Twitter should probably do a better job of communicating such problems to users before more people fall victim. Mashable notes that they did contact the company about the issue, and they are aware of it, and "on the case."

Twitter Worm Spreading

Users who encounter the worm are encouraged to change their passwords and contact Twitter.

Security issues continue to plague not only Twitter, but social media in general. According to a study from Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, time on social networking sites has increased by 73% in the past year. Another study recently released by AVG and CMO Council found that social network uses are more vulnerable to security risks than non-users.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

Agree, Twitter has to take a page from Google

When gmail had an outage last month, a root cause and countermeasures were discussed by Google on their blog in an up front way. Twitter could borrow a page from Google in this regard.

It also appears that the Twitter worm is the latest in an evolution from the same attack source.

Publish A Comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
2 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
SEARCH
Popular WPN Business Resources












Subscribe to WebProNews


Send me relevant info