Beware of Twitter Phishing Attacks

Micro Blogging site Twitter has become a victim of phishing attacks off late as user are being prompted with direct messages as "You’re on here?" which is followed by a link. Other links include "someone posted on their blog about you" and a site called "mhansenhome". Do NOT click on any such URLs if you wish to avoid having your account hacked.

When a user clicks on such links a webpage asks him/her to enter the username and password. Once clicked your profile becomes instantly vulnerable to attacks. Twitter has asked users to change the password in case any such DM is recieved, or if you find yourself sending such DMs with the links. Twitter also aims to combat phishing by introducing its Twt.tl URL shortener — which enables links sent via DM to appear as "‘twt.tl" in email notifications, which allow Twitter to re-route malicious links to a warning page in some cases.

Meanwhile Twitter has also begun work on integrating 'popular tweets' on top of the search results. "This is a beta project, but an important first step to surface the most popular tweets for users searching Twitter (Twitter)."Twitter Developer Advocate Taylor Singletary said. Also, the appearance of Twitter Search will also be altered to highlight popular tweets. The popular search results would be ranked according to users who have a high level of followers and engagement.