Hackers Compromise Numerous Twitter Accounts to Spread Adult Content

According to Symantec the security company, almost 2,500 Twitter accounts belonging to celebrities had been hijacked while tweets carrying web-links taking onto adult sites were distributed as spam from those very accounts.

The attack caught several high-profile accounts some of them respectively being of a worldwide fame journalist writing for The Telegraph, the Chromeo band, David Carr the late reporter of New York Times, Cecil Shorts III widely received in Houston Texas, and Azeem Banatwala, stand-up comedian.

Symantec discovered one more trait in the attack i.e. the attackers didn't directly tweet else distribute missives as spam through the hijacked accounts. Rather they made use of like tweets as well as follow other accountholders in anticipation that they'll go to the hijacked profiles from sheer inquisitiveness.

In Symantec's opinion, the attackers behind the hijacking act earn $4 every time an individual logs into the dating website.

It's obvious that the attackers' objective is for getting victims who would have clicked on the web-links that would take them onto porn websites. For that reason they targeted A/Cs having huge followings like Chromeo whose followers count to 119,000.

Narang explains that by successfully hacking into the above kind of accounts followed with utilizing them for posting tweets would greatly make the possibility of people clicking through the web-links in comparison with any account that has 100 or 20 followers. Motherboard.com posted this, May 24, 2016.

Symantec notes a few measures too for protecting the celebrity Twitter A/Cs.

Data from the cyber-security company further indicates that criminals created 27% of the hijacked A/Cs during 2011, whilst owners of several older accounts among the hijacked ones had abandoned them; therefore, there weren't any fresh tweets during the past two or so years.

Symantec feels the current attack aimed at old accounts, which before getting defaced appeared as being abandoned.

Keeping into consideration that a few profiles were of people actively using them, the criminals in great possibility are utilizing passwords exposed during past hacks and that they test and try over other websites for examining whether their owners use the same passwords on other websites.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/1/2016