Topic: New Twitter worm is spreading like wildfire (acainews, acai berries, Gawker)

[Samker]

Twitter is facing a worm this morning that, according to Mashable, is “spreading like wildfire”: http://mashable.com/2010/12/13/acai-berry-twitter-worm-warning/
The attack comes from tweets advertising acai berries and link to sites with URLs containing “acainews.” While the exact nature of the attack has yet to be confirmed, it is spreading incredibly fast. Within one minute of news hitting the twitter-sphere, 10,000 malicious tweets had been tweeted on the subject, and that number is growing by the minute. Clicking on the link will compromise your account and make it vulnerable to hijacking. If you think your account has been infected, the best course of action for now is to change your password.

Damon Cortesi: http://twitter.com/dacort/status/14232359100489728 , a well-known Twitter third-party developer, says that the malicious code is coming from the compromised accounts themselves, and not the sites that they link to. Del Harvey: http://twitter.com/delbius/status/14235293116792833 , head of Twitter’s Trist and Safety Team, tweeted that due to the similarities between the accounts uncovered in the recent stolen Gawker database and the compromised Twitter accounts, it is likely that the attacks are connected. If you are one of the Gawker users whose account was compromised in that attack, it is recommended that you immediately change your Twitter password accordingly.

(NW)

[bartblaze]

You always have to be careful on Twitter (and other social network sites) which links you click on. Not only the "funny" looking links are dangerous, but nowadays alot of URL shortener services like tinyurl and bit.ly are being used. They may redirect to a malicious website.

Mainly the trending topics are targeted, so watch out where you click .