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Famous Personalities’ Twitter Accounts Spread Porn Trojan

As per the news published in ecommerce-journal on June 24, 2009, Twitter users became the target of a new wave of hacking attacks on June 23, 2009.

In these attacks, hackers have created fake e-mail accounts where they have posted fake links to direct their followers to malicious destinations. When followers reach anyone of these destinations, their computers get infected with malware.

Among the fake accounts created to attract unwitting Twitter users to fake websites, Twitter page of Guy Kawasaki, Former Apple Macintosh Evangelist, received great attention.

Hackers have posted an interesting comment on Twitter page of Kawasaki which says "Leighton Meester sex tape video free download!"

Moreover, the message contains a link that takes Kawasaki followers to a fake porn website where hackers try to plant a malicious Trojan horse on their computers.

An interesting fact about the malicious program is its potential to attack both Windows and Mac users.

Twitter account of Kawasaki was not the only account that had been used by hackers for hosting malware, but it was the most high-profile with around 140,000 followers. This implies that hackers launched the new wave of attacks by breaking in accounts of high-profile entities and Kawasaki was one them owing to a large fan following.

Gary Warner, Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama (Birmingham), said that over 1,600 people was estimated to have followed the link posted on Kawasaki Twitter account, as reported by ecommerce-journal on June 24, 2009.

Explaining the method of hack, some security experts believe that Kawasaki and others such as Meester, the star of GossipGirl, might have become victims of phishing attacks before.

According to Rik Ferguson, Researcher at Trend Micro, although the hacked Twitter accounts are still very less in number, they are very effective in making victim. Ferguson further adds that the success of an attack depends on the number of followers to an account and if it gets thousands of followers, then the return on investment will be very high, as reported by PCWorld on June 23, 2009.

Twitter has acknowledged that it has been facing security problems for past few months. Similarly, Twitter accounts of some famous personalities like the US President Barack Obama, Britney Spears and many others have also been hacked earlier this year.

Related article: Finnish Police E-mails Spoofed in Phishing Attack

» SPAMfighter News - 7/1/2009

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