Twitter Phishing

[phernandez]

In hindsight, it was bound to happen. Stay alert and be suspicious of those DMs...

Gone Phishing - Twitter Blog

How Does It Work?

This particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages. The email says something like, "hey! check out this funny blog about you..." and provides a link. That link redirects to a site masquerading as the Twitter front page. Look closely at the URL field, if it has another domain besides Twitter but looks exactly like our page then it's a fraud and you should not sign in. Here are some basic tips on how to avoid Phishing scams...

[MrLinus]

Really important to remind people to change their passwords regularly as well. I've noticed a few people who say that Twitter is just a nothing but given how quickly it's spreading and such, it can be a pretty powerful thing (plus the fact that users are often lazy and use the same password for twitter as they do their email and such)

[morganlefay]

Good point Ms Mittens...

I know of far too many people that use the same password for EVERYTHING

MLF

[The-Spec]

Sites use the term "phishing" as an SEO trick to get goobers like you to post links to their domain. It's also a poor attempt at making themselves appear larger than they actually are too. Think about it... who the hell uses this thing? Anyone?

The truth is that nobody give a damn about twatter.

Personally, I'd like nothing more than to destroy everything that's popped up on the internet in the last eight years.

[t34b4g5]

Tell me Specialist.

Is there anything. Anything at all that you don't have a pro-found disliking towards?

[t34b4g5]

Twitter hackers break into Barack Obama's account

CONSERVATIVE political commentator Bill O'Reilly is gay and CNN personality Rick Sanchez is high on drugs, if you are to believe their Twitter accounts."Breaking: Bill O Riley (sic) is gay," read a post on the official Fox News Twitter account overnight, after several high-profile accounts were taken over by hackers.
US President-elect Barack Obama, Britney Spears and The Huffington Post were all hit by what Twitter described as "a very serious breach of security".
After breaking into Twitter's system, the hackers posted defamatory and offensive messages to the celebrity profiles.
"i am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today (sic)," read one such message posted to Sanchez's account.
Another on Mr Obama's account directed readers to a promotional website aimed at collecting user data including email addresses and personal information.
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the hackers had compromised the software that staff used to administer accounts.
"This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been 'hacked' including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama," he said.
"These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses.
"We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline."
Twitter has increasingly become a target for hacking and phishing attempts as it grows in popularity.
A report last month found that about a fifth of all Twitter users had signed up in the previous 60 days and between 5000 and 10,000 new accounts were opened every day.
Dozens of Australians have fallen prey to a phishing scam that began last week, tricking users into handing over their username and password.
The scam involves directing users to a website that looks like Twitter but is in fact part of the trap.
After gaining access to an account, the scammers send a message to the user's followers trying to direct them to the trap website as well.
Some of the scam messages have pretended to offer free gadgets such as iPhones.
"hey. i won an iphone! come see how here (sic)," read one such message, with a link to a website called "helloiphones.com".
Twitter posted advice for users on how to avoid the scam and added a message to all pages, saying: "Warning! Don't sign in to fake Twitter.com from a DM."

Links
Hacked profiles (warning: may be offensive) – http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/05/either...
Twitter's response – http://blog.twitter.com/2009/01/monday-morning-mad...
Phishing warning – http://blog.twitter.com/2009/01/gone-phishing.html

[mungyun]

Not sure why, but a surprising number of people use twitter.. I personally dont understand the big hype about letting people know what you are currently doing but then again i dont like myspace or the like because i am the typical antisocial computer geek...

[t34b4g5]

Not sure why, but a surprising number of people use twitter.. I personally dont understand the big hype about letting people know what you are currently doing but then again i dont like myspace or the like because i am the typical antisocial computer geek...

I feel the same in a way..

Although i do have a myspace account, but that is used to keep in contact with relatives. It's easier for my computer illiterate relo'es to upload pictures/ view pictures etc.

They always managed to screw up sending stuff via email, no matter how simple i worded instructions etc etc.

But you give them access to those networking sites and they love it..

And as far as the whole social networking thing goes, i am very very careful when i use them.

Double check the url, i always check links before i click them, and any attachements etc don't get launched on any of the machines on the network but on a old pc that has bare min installed.

[Linen0ise]

Sounds like an inside job. What makes them certain that it is their security tools compromised? Me thinks that since Obama is listed as a victim, it was perfect to say Palin and Obama have fallen for the same trick. Maybe the compromised servers have underground communities on them that the security tools and logs can't see?

[nihil]

Here is some more: it would seem that Twitter just has crap security....... a dictionary attack on an Admin's account No limit on login attempts............OMG!

A hacker called 'GMZ' launched a basic dictionary-based attack on the Twitter account for 'Crystal', a Twitter administrator, and successfully cracked the account's password, according to the email.

Backs up what Linen0ise suggested. If you crack an admin's password then it would look like an inside job.

Story is here:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1...9588628,00.htm

Here is some more:

Facebook and MySpace are so 2008; now scammers have set their sites on conning Twitter and LinkedIn users.

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/882