Hackers create chaos on Twitter with 'worm' attacks

[DorsetBoy]

 


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/hackers-create-chaos-on-twitter-with-worm-attacks-2085831.html

By Rhodri Marsden

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

The information-rich world of Twitter was almost converted into total gobbledegook yesterday as hackers took advantage of a security flaw to create self-replicating "worms" that automatically posted themselves to users' accounts.


Any Twitter user who hovered their cursor over the unintelligible messages immediately risked spreading them to the accounts of their own followers. At its peak, over 100 such messages were being generated every second, causing consternation among the Twitter community, who rely on the service for everything from breaking news to inconsequential amusement.

The effects of the worm ranged from harmless messing about to malicious redirects to unsavoury websites; at one point Sarah Brown, wife of the former PM, unwittingly guided her 1.1 million devoted followers towards a Japanese pornography site. "Don't touch the earlier tweet," she posted later. "This twitter feed has something very odd going on!"

[Gary]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/hackers-create-chaos-on-twitter-with-worm-attacks-2085831.html

By Rhodri Marsden

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

I saw that yesterday, thing is a lot of companies now use twitter to get info out quickly as forums are a slowly dying place, shame it gets fecked around with, talking of which 4chan have been at it again with denial of service attacks on entertainment web sites, happy days   

[Rik]

I can only enjoy  the schadenfreude.