‘Is someone REALLY saying nasty things about you?’ It’s a Twitter scam
By Robb Hicken/ chief storyteller
Got a email in my personal account the other day. It read: “Someone is saying nasty things about you on Twitter.”
Come on! I’m not going to fall for that. And, neither should you. Does it really mean that much that someone is saying something nasty about you?
This is a classic phishing scam!
Clicking on the bit.ly link took me to a fake twitter login. It said that my current session had expired. (I don’t remember ever being knocked off Twitter).
I typed in my login and password, and BBB’s virus scammer stopped me there. “YOU’RE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER THIS PAGE.”
This week I read further about the scam. It explains this was a phishing scam, and installs malware that would send out direct mail from my Twitter account with similar statements. If anyone received these, my apologies. Our IT department said the virus protector we use should have stopped any items from going out .
A similar Twitter attack was launched in August, October, and December of last year.
If you did click though, take the following steps:
- Change your Twitter password.
- Verify the email address for your Twitter account was not changed.
- If you’ve used the same e-mail address and password on other web sites, then immediately check them out and change their passwords.
- If your Twitter account is sending out phishing messages, you should also visit the Applications tab in “Account Settings”, and Revoke Access for any third-party application that you don’t recognize.
Remember, you should always be suspicious of links that you are sent in an email, tweet or social networking site. If you are ever in doubt, DON’T CLICK!
Tags: Internet, malware, Open thread, security, spam, spambot, Technology, Twitter
