Phishing Scam Targets (Dumb) Twitter Users Opening DM’ed Links

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It had to happen sooner than later:

Phishing Scam Spreading on Twitter | Chris Pirillo: “A few minutes ago, I received a direct message from one of my twitter followers:

“hey! check out this funny blog about you… jannawalitax . blogspot . com”

DO NOT VISIT the URL in question. It will redirect you immediately to a suspicious domain
: twitter . access-logins . com – notice the subdomain? “

Twitter needs to deploy a trusted login system for 3rd party apps instead of relying on users to always input their usernames/passwords. Soon.

Oh, and don’t open DM links from people you don’t know. Why in the world would someone do that?? Did we not all learn our lesson from email? Sigh.

Maybe this will cause more people to slash-and-burn the people they are following to actual people they know and/or trust (like I did last month) rather than binging on thousands of follows.

[Updated: This comment on Chris’ post is the voice of reason in the Twitter wilderness:

Best way to avoid these kind of situation is to not ‘follow’ everyone! Its just pointless as there is no way you can ‘really follow’ every single one of them..It just causes an information overload and makes this ‘useful service’ not so useful anymore..

If you are not following that person, he shouldn’t be able to send you a DM….Right? So if you follow people carefully, you can actually control how much ’spam’ you get.

Following everyone is like ..giving away your home address to everyone you meet so that they can send you Junk.

Preach it, Saad Kamal.]

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10 Replies to “Phishing Scam Targets (Dumb) Twitter Users Opening DM’ed Links”

  1. Well I don't follow everyone, even though by looking at my account it may seem that way. http://www.twitter.com/saadkamalI am only following people whom I find interesting and are worth following.

    Reply

  2. Twitter Phishing ~ 1st Tweets Timeline/Chart… http://tweetip.us/lkto7

    Reply

  3. When I saw that “HEY! If you get an email masquerading as a DM with a link it could be 'Phishing'” note added to Twitter, I wondered exactly the same thing you've mentioned, Sam: how could people be so naive as to click links sent to them by someone they do not know? They are one of your Twitter followers. So what? Haven't you (not directed at anyone specific) ever received an e-mail from Bank of America or PayPal, or Amazon, saying that your account has been hacked, or your password has been changed, and you must click a link to fix it? It is just sad to see that scammers still have their responsive “target audience”…

    Reply

  4. No doubt. Great points. Hopefully people will wake up and realize that spammers and not-so-nice people use things like Twitter as much as they use email or IM. This reminds me of the “I have a Mac so I'll never get a virus” mentality that causes people to really let their guard down.As wonderful as it is, the web has a large and nasty underbelly. You have to be smart or you'll end up in big trouble.

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  5. You know what, Sam? I have just received a spammy Twitter DM from someone I actually know personally… It seems to be more complex than I thought, but doesn't change the rule that we've been following with phishing e-mails (disguised as pieces of PayPal, Amazon, etc correspondence): if you are not sure — do *not* click it, but either log into your account and check what's going on, or e-mail the person that sent you the message to double-check with them.

    Reply

  6. Twitter is awesome. I love the way disqus blogs integrate it so well. 😉

    Reply

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