Top 8 worst Twitter social media hacks

Posted by Robert Siciliano on February 3rd, 2010

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger.

In the past year, the use of Twitter has increased dramatically. And so has the criminal hacker’s attention to the opportunity to use it for illicit gain. Here are the top-eight worst types of Twitter social media hacks:

1. Jacked Twitter Accounts: Numerous Twitter (and Facebook) accounts, including those belonging to President Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News and others, were taken over and used to ridicule, harass, or commit fraud.
2. Social Media Identity Theft: Hundreds of impostor accounts are set up every day. Sarah Palin, St Louis Cardinals Coach Tony LaRussa, Kanye West, Huffington Post and many others have had Twitter accounts opened in their names or names similar to theirs.
3. Twitter Worms: Worms infiltrate Twitter sending requests to click on links that, in turn, infect user accounts and begin to multiply the message. Followers of infected accounts get the requests, and then their followers get them, causing more grief than anything else.
4. Twitter DOS Attack: Twitter itself was victimized by a denial-of-service attack that left the site dark for more than three hours. Reports indicated that a politically motivated attack in Russia seemed to be the cause.
5. Twitter used as a Botnet Controller: A Twitter account produced links that led to commands to download code to run a botnet.
6. Twitter Phishing: Cybercriminals use tweets to draw users to spoofed sites and trick them into entering account or financial information. It's a crime that's on the rise.
7. Twitter Porn: Please, “Misty Buttons” stop sending me another invite to chat or see your pics.
8. Twitter Spam: The use of short URLs has made Twitter's 140-character limit the perfect launch pad for spam leading to diet pills, Viagra and whatever else you don’t need.

With Twitter now a part of the daily routines of millions of people, who login from home or work, it will undoubtedly play a big role in the criminal hacking community in 2010.

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Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com, an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of two books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Intelius to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discussing social media identity theft on CNN.