Scam Alert: Is Someone is Posting Bad Rumors About You on Twitter?

Did you get a message on Twitter stating that someone was saying bad things about you? The good news is that the message is untrue. The bad news is that if you clicked the link in that message, you just got hacked. New users are particularly susceptible to this scam.

The typical scam here is that you’ll receive a message saying that someone is posting rumors about you, or that they are laughing at a picture of you, and a link is included. When you click the link, it appears that you were signed out of Twitter and need to sign in again. This is a FAKE Twitter website, and if you enter in your log in information, you are actually handing this over to hackers. In other words, these links take you to a phony Twitter site with the purpose of getting your information.

Seasoned Twitter users know all about these “someone posted a rumor” scams on there, but almost daily I run into new Twitter users who are fooled by it. And this is exactly what those hackers are banking on – fooling new or occasional Twitter users. After they hack an account, two things typically happen:

Your friends on Twitter will start getting the same direct message from you. This allows the hackers to continually hack new accounts.
Your account will start spamming Twitter with links to various websites.

What are these websites they spam on your behalf? Phishing scams, web forgeries, affiliate marketers, sites with spyware or viruses… pretty much nothing you want associated with your name.

I went back and collected a couple of older links that hackers spammed on my friend’s behalf a few months ago. Twitter has since blocked these. This will give you an idea of what your profile could look like tomorrow if you click one of these phony links in your inbox today. By the way, DO NOT VISIT THESE WEBSITES! They are listed below as an example and not to be visited.

• Want to know who “Stalks” you on Twitter? http://fantar.ru
• Want to lose any weight? go here: http://newsmedia25.com  best product for losing weight

 

What to do if you are hacked

• Change your password. This is the first thing you should do. If you can’t log in, try to have your password reset via email.
• Check your apps. Make sure a malicious app wasn’t installed into your account. This can be found under your account settings. If you see any apps you don’t use or recognize, get rid of them.
• Delete any spam Tweets posted to your account. This will at least get rid of those malicious links on your profile.

 

Here are some variants of the direct messages we see on Twitter. All of these are the same phishing scam:

• Hello someone is making really bad rumors about you…
• Hello someone is posting really bad things about you…
• Hello someone is saying really bad rumors about you…
• Hey this b–ch is saying some really nasty rumors about u..
• Hi someone is saying terrible rumors about you…
• Hi this user is posting terrible rumors about you…
• Hi some person is making horrible rumors about you…
• Hi someone is posting terrible things about you…
• Hey some person is saying really bad rumors about you…
• Hey somebody is posting very bad things about you…
• Hey somebody is making nasty rumors about you…
• Hello this user is posting horrible things about you…
• rofl…I’m laughing so hard at this pic of u someone uploaded
• OMG my ex is retarded

• YO! this ex friend is saying some bad lies about u….
• Did you see this tweet about you?
• Someone is making up a horrible rumor about you
• Someone is making up a nasty rumor about you
• A horrible rumor is spreading about you
• Heya Did this dudette really just call you a
• yo this dick is writing f–ked up stuff that are about you
• hey this user is making up shocking posts that are about you
• hey this person is making up cruel things that are about you