Spam News

Twitter gets attacked with old-school technique

Monday, January 5, 2009

The status-update website currently has a phishing scam spreading throughout its network that asks users to click on a malicious link that will send a spam tweet to an account's followers.

Users logged into their Twitter account are being warned of a message asking to "Check this cool website" with a link. When clicked, the malicious link redirects to another website aimed at stealing login information from the user.

This attack appears to be focused on stealing passwords in an effort to send out spam messages throughout a user's tweet network.

While the attack may seem old and possibly harmless when compared to hacks targeting large corporations who have sensitive data at stake, the spreading of the malicious links may be an introduction to what cybercriminals have in store for social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Toward the end of 2008, security experts predicted these types of sites would be the targeted by cybercriminals as new ways to get into users' private information and to spread malware which could potentially do more harm than the stealing of passwords.