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Tweets promising free
Twitter followers is a phishing scam by cyber gang
"This is an extremely viral campaign that's spreading rapidly," says Patrick Walsh, chief technology officer at network security firm eSoft. The criminals are sending out microblog postings -- Tweets -- from legit Twitter accounts suggesting that people click to a web service that will instantly get them 50 to 100 more followers. Visitors to the web page are asked to type in their Twitter logon and password to use the service for free. Of course the information gets routed to the bad guys. They then use an automated program to instantly log on to the victim's Twitter account and blast out a similar Tweet once every few hours. The shortened links carried in these postings are constantly tweaked to avoid being blocked or filtered. "This is by far the biggest type of attack like this that we've seen, in terms of how many people are getting affected and getting their accounts hacked," says Lee Graves, eSoft threat communications specialist. For the moment, the gang appears to be intent on amassing thousands of valid Twitter account logons. To cash in, the gang can later access the accounts and blast out spam for worthless drugs or antivirus subscriptions. Or they could Tweet out links to infected web pages designed to turn over full control of a visitor's PC to the bad guys. Like other phishing campaigns aimed at the messaging systems of popular social networks, this one relies on the message seemingly being sent by a familar source. And Twitter has trained its members to get into the habit of freely using their Twitter logons to access of third-party applications for hundreds of clever online services. So Twitter users are in the habit of typing their Twitter logons to try out new things. If you suspect your account has been compromised, change your password as quickly as possible. This will stop the bad guys from using your account, says Walsh. ESoft supplied these sample Tweets as leading to a phishing web page:
Technology Live has reached out to Twitter spokesman Sean Garrett for comment. We'll let you know when he gets back to us. - By Byron Acohido/ http://content.usatoday.com/
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