Check your Twitter account for rogue applications

Graham Cluley
@gcluley

If you’re careless about what applications you allow to access your Twitter account, don’t be surprised if you find the bad guys are spamming tweets out in your name without your permission.

Here’s just a small sample of the messages we saw earlier today, claiming to link to free iPhone 4 offers or tools to help you find out who had unfollowed your Twitter account.

Some of the messages posted from innocent users’ Twitter accounts have claimed that it’s easy to get your hands on a free iPhone 4:

Whereas others seem to suggest that they offer a way to easily monitor who has unfollowed you on Twitter. (Which is perhaps an attractive tool after Twitter acknowledge earlier this week that the service was suffering from an “unfollowing bug”).

Rogue applications we have seen sending these messages include…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.


Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.

What do you think? Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.