There is a fairly egregious worm going around now that masquerades as a YouTube link for a “banned” Lady Gaga video. When you click on the bit.ly link it sends you to a fake YouTube page and then asks for permission to access your Twitter account. This results in another infected tweet being sent out on your Twoot stream, thereby continuing the long, sad cycle.
Sophos details the specifics of the attack but it notes that even the Lady herself is quite upset:
This is after her own Twitter stream began sending out the infected Tweets including one mentioning Shakira. It seems most of the Tweets are in Spanish so it may reduce the virality of the worm in English-speaking countries but it’s an interesting attack vector nonetheless – and you can be positive someone will try this trick again in multiple languages. Just remind your relatives not to give out their Twitter credentials to random websites. Also remember that you can revoke access to any app from your account page although, sadly, you can’t call them on your telephone, ya-ya-ya-your telephone.
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