Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: January 3, 2009
Tags : Twitter
Twitter users are being targeted by a phishing scam that tricks recipients into logging into a fake Twitter page.
The emails, appearing as direct messages in email, include a reference to a site and links that appear to be Twitter. Users who are use to receiving direct messages in this way usually wouldn’t think twice about clicking on one.
The result: users are taken to a site registered in China that looks identical to Twitter, but is actually on the URL twitter.access-logins.com. I’ll give the phishers credit: they’re at least being honest in the URL.
The only good take away for Twitter itself: services are usually only targeted by phishing scams if they become popular enough to be targeted.
See also Chris Pirillo and Mashable for more.
Jan 3, 2009
Hi Duncan. I also noticed that this type of phishing messages also infiltrated the likes of Facebook that gets posted in a member's wall. That is a bit scarier as others get to see it, if you are not quick enough to delete them, and I usually end up removing the person from my friends list. I wonder if there are controls possible to prevent this from being abused further.