Once again Twitter users are finding themselves hit by a fast-infecting attack, more commonly encountered by their Facebook-using cousins: a rogue application spreading virally across the network.
Thousands of Twitter users have fallen into the trap of allowing rogue third-party applications access their Twitter accounts, believing that it would tell them how many people have unfollowed them.
A typical message reads:
58 people have unfollowed me, find out how many have unfollowed you: [LINK] #rw2011 #duringsexplease #youneedanasswhoopin
See the hashtags? They appear to be currently trending phrases on Twitter – presumably the rogue applications are using them in the messages they spam out in an attempt to trick more users into clicking on the links.
If you do click on the link you are asked to give authorisation for a third-party application to access your Twitter account.
Don’t, whatever you do, press the “Allow” button. If you do, then…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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