Pay attention professional photographer friends for above is the latest social hacking/phishing scam to hit twitter and below is the one that’s been around for a few days now.
The screenshots above are from the @DWF_Forum twitter account direct message inbox and are from photographers whos social networking presence has been compromised.
Did I mention that’s just some of the ones we’ve received? and they are FROM PHOTOGRAPHERS.
For the uninformed this is a phishing scam. What’s phishing you ask? I’ll let wikipedia tell ya.
In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminallyfraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. – wikipedia
The “This You” and the “I’ve been having better sex” phishing scams trick users into giving up control of their account. Your computer in essence becomes a tool helping the bot author to cast their net even further. The video below from Sophos shows you how this could happen to you.
The moral of the story is be safe. Don’t click on awkward messages and if you click a link and are then prompted for a login don’t enter your information. Back out enter the twitter.com URL manually and login from there before proceeding.
Good luck and be safe!
UPDATE 3/1/10:
There is a new variation on this theme that is bound to attract photographers. I just received one from a photography industry company that immediately caught my eye because of the text involved…
(twitter user your know) somebody wrote something about you in this blog here (followed by a tiny url here)
1 Comment at "UPDATE Photogs on Twitter Need to Read This Article"
Oh noes! Not a virus in my twittery!
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