An infectious worm is spreading on Tumblr, hijacking dashboards and intercepting feels across the internet.
As of this morning, several prominent Tumblrs have been affected by the infectious worm spreading on the service, and Tumblr spokesperson Katherine Barna confirmed the issue in an email to Mashable in which she explains:
“There is a viral post circulating on Tumblr which begins ‘Dearest ‘Tumblr’ users.’ If you have viewed this post, please log out of all browsers that may be using Tumblr immediately. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible.”
Mashable explains that the Tumblr infectious worm is spreading among users by posting and reposting a message and that a pop-up seems to be where the trouble begins:
“The worm seems to be infecting any account that either reblogs or views (on an individual blog, not on users’ dashboards) the following insulting post. Mashable reader Christian H. shared a screenshot showing the post activates a fake pop-up, which if clicked allows the worm to spread. If you encounter the pop-up, do not click any part of it — instead, close your browser immediately.”
The Verge was one popular title affected by the infectious worm spreading on Tumblr, and the site posted on Twitter about the hack that affected its own Tumblr account. Tumblr followed up with a Twitter status update confirming the breach, and, as of now, posting functionality to Tumblr is disabled to prevent the offensive status update from proliferating:
We are aware that there is a viral post circulating on Tumblr. We are working to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible.Thank you.
— Tumblr (@tumblr) December 3, 2012
As of now, no across the board security recommendations have been made for Tumblr users, but it may be safest to avoid the service until the issue has been resolved.
Was your blog affected by the infectious worm spreading on Tumblr?
