Log Into Twitter And Change Your Password

Just sending a *hug*, Chris. The phishing/spam/dumbshit internet usage is high speed suckage. I can only imagine the number of times you’ve been hit now. So sorry. *more hugs*

It’s just a good habit to change your passwords regularly, phishing or not. I know (myself included) that most of us don’t. After the recent Facebook spam (very similar to the current Twitter garbage), I started changing passwords on everything I log into.
It sounds counterintuitive, but write them down (pencil & paper), and keep that safe. It’s less likely that someone will break into your house to steal your passwords.

What incenses me is Twitter doing a piss poor job of managing the situation. Bloggers and others have to do it for them. They couldn’t simply delete the “phisher,” instead they inconvenience everyone by warning them by saying, “Phishing just happens…”

How much VC money do they need to not get raped by a phishing scam?

Give a man a phish & you can lure him to a bogus Web site & steal his personal information.
Teach a man to phish & he’ll lure you to a bogus Web site, steal your personal information, seduce your wife & hurt your dog.

Oh, and how much does it take to make money?

I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the phishing happened after Chris’s blog about DMs and robots? Is this some kind of revenge? Is Skynet now active? In all seriousness, has Twitter provided a way to report the usernames of people from whom we received the DMs? That would be a first step to fixing this. I would suggest changing your password and not using ANY external apps until this DM issue settles down. Has anyone heard anything specific and/or useful from Twitter lately — the silence is deafening.

Matthew Gilbert
@doctorious
doctorious.org

I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the phishing happened after Chris’s blog about DMs and robots? Is this some kind of revenge? Is Skynet now active? In all seriousness, has Twitter provided a way to report the usernames of people from whom we received the DMs? That would be a first step to fixing this. I would suggest changing your password and not using ANY external apps until this DM issue settles down. Has anyone heard anything specific and/or useful from Twitter lately — the silence is deafening.

Matthew Gilbert
@doctorious
doctorious.org

Hi Chris,
Could you amend your post to include this link to Chris Pirillo’s post explaining what is going on?

http://chris.pirillo.com/2009/01/03/phishing-scam-spreading-on-twitter/

Your post is more inflamatory than explanatory.

It’s like you are spreading fear instead of reason.

Right?

Thanks,
–Steve

Hi Chris,
Could you amend your post to include this link to Chris Pirillo’s post explaining what is going on?

http://chris.pirillo.com/2009/01/03/phishing-scam-spreading-on-twitter/

Your post is more inflamatory than explanatory.

It’s like you are spreading fear instead of reason.

Right?

Thanks,
–Steve

Thanks.

That helps.

I received the dodgy DMs from someone I wasn’t even following earlier today. Was smart enough (whew!) not click through. Any idea on the best way to report that user account?

I just recently started changing all of my passwords just to be safe. I guess we should all get in the habit of changing our passwords more frequently…

-Justin

Twitter has a post about this on their blog too:

http://blog.twitter.com/2009/01/gone-phishing.html

Chris,
Good to see this warning from you. I started warning my friends during the day on Sunday.

Keep STRONG, Everyone!
Vincent

I wonder how much phishing we could eliminate if only two countries were to go dark…

Anyone guess which two?

One starts with N and has oil, the other starts with R and has oil.

@skyminor your answer!

Thanks for posting this, Chris although Steve was right to push you display more info. A couple of small disagreements here with comments.

1)Twitter has many faults (what site doesn’t?) but they are not responsible for the links you may click on to get lured to a rogue site. People use AV and think they’re safe, but most security experts will tell you that the biggest danger is now from web sites and scripts on same.

2) There are a couple of countries that are apparently the source of most wicked schemes and spam on the Net, but they are not necessarily the originators of of said schemes or spam. There will always be drones in bot networks and they can just as easily be in the USA as anywhere at all. Granted, in the case of spam servers, blocking two countries would do wonders. Unfortunately, one can’t do this if there is the slightest possibility of international business from said countries.

Chris, I like when you talk dirty in a Holy Hell sort of way :D
I want to be able to just turn off my DM function all together…does anyone know how to do this? Twitter is for shouting tweets/links or else send me a private email but forget DM’s they are so annoying IMHO.
http://thedogsdish.posterous.com/social-network-ize

Thanks Chris – done it. Email phising has a new friend… Twitter phising.
I like your approach: no tip toeing around this issue – just do it and do it now!

Remember passwords are like toothbrushes.
They should be changed often and never shared.

Of you could say they are like underware :)

I did it and tweet this post… thanks a lot

For past 20 hours (yesterday) Twitter is not sending notifications to email regarding DMs or followers, but the are showing up on twitter account. I have changed both passwords several times the past week … It appears that Twitter has been compromised somehow from main site.

This is getting pretty pathetic. Everyone should know that they should always worry about who they are giving their passwords too.

Done did the do! Thanx!

Great advice, done!