If you read some of our previous articles you probably know about the Koobface warm and other similar malware affecting users’ accounts on social networking sites. Well, BitDefender published a list of five simple steps to avoid spam on Twitter, as hackers use spamming first in order to get your attention and attract you to click on links disguised by those services used to shorten URL addresses, such as TinyURL. Many Twitter users needing to post long hyperlinks have to limit these to 140 characters. Free online services like TinyURL can create a 25-character URL from a 55-character hyperlink, which makes it an useful tool especially when you want to share multiple links in a single tweet.
Users can’t see the descriptive name in the original URL and so they can be easily mislead into clicking on malicious links.
To offer a general view of the spam via Twitter, BitDefender lists five common types of spam. These include receiving tones of messages with links from members you are subscribed to, direct messages, the ReTweet spam that involves finding already tweeted URLs and re-tweeting them with a malicious link, spam with subjects in trend such as news about Obama but with malicious links, while the last example is about receiving tones of unknown followers, which are automated, targeting to gather many followers before starting a massive spam.
To avoid all of these, BitDefender recommends you first to install a good protection solution on your computer, such as an Internet security software, and then read the Spam section on Tweeter, where you can find out the latest tips on how to avoid spam. Next, try not to click on every link you receive, but only on those coming from people you know.
The last tip is to disable the option for automatic followback so you can have enough time to check each member and choose who you want to follow.
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Thank you BitDefender for this recommendations, I will surely follow your advice when following people on twitter;)
Caroline
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Thank you BitDefender for the tips, it’s good to know what people that don’t have anything else to do do on twitter:P
Caroline