Profile Spy rogue application spreads virally on Twitter

Twitter users are once again finding themselves on the receiving end of an attack more often experienced by their Facebook-using cousins: a rogue application attack spreading virally across the network.

Thousands of Twitter users have fallen into the trap of allowing a third party application called “Profile Spy” to access their Twitter accounts, after believing that they would be able to find out who has been viewing their tweets.

Wow! See who viewed your twitter with Profile Spy [LINK]

Of course, there’s no such way to tell who has been reading your Twitter posts – but that hasn’t stopped thousands and thousands of Twitter users from clicking on the link, and granting “Profile Spy” permission to post messages from their account.

If you are foolhardy enough to allow the app to continue, you’ll find that you are instantly tweeting out messages to your Twitter followers, encouraging them to also click on the link.

In this way, the scam…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity 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 analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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