There has been more than one story in the news recently about Twitter accounts being hijacked. The most recent examples of note include the accounts of Britney Spears and famed blogger/entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki. These issues have highlighted some potential dangers of using the service, or really social networks in general. Have you encountered security issues with Twitter or other social networks? Share with WebProNews readers.
Amit Klein, CTO of Trusteer, a security firm, who counts the nation's largest direct bank, ING Direct, among its customers, feels that Twitter account hijacking is an issue that more people need to be aware of. WebProNews asked Klein a few questions about it, and the following is the resulting Q&A session.
WebProNews: Please talk a little bit about what is happening when Twitter (and other social network) accounts are hijacked.
Amit Klein: Typically, criminals hijack Twitter accounts in order to spread malware. That is, they abuse the hijacked accounts to post messages to all the "followers", with a link to a site that serves malware. In the Guy Kawasaki incident, for example (not a classic account hijacking, but still a malware spreading campaign), of the 139,000 followers, it is estimated that hundreds got infected.
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