Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes
Last Saturday, Twitter has reportedly been infected by a worm that hightened security concerns amongst users of the controversial micro-blogging platform. The Twitter worm is said to be anchored by a link going to the website www.stalkdaily.com and appeared as automatically generated tweets.
The worm exploited a cross site scripting or XSS vulnerability that changes the hyperlinks of infected profiles which are then spreadout by means of JavaScript.
Susceptiblity to the said worm is relatively high because once an account becomes infected, such accounts’ followers (avid followers, relatives, friends, co-workers, etc.) are most likely to click on the link thereby making the worm infection viral.
The scariest part is, what if this link or if something of similar nature happens in the future but through the URL shortening service (like TinyURL or Bit.ly), then all Twitter users will most likely be prone to malware threats and the worse part of it could be a future cellphone malware attack because as we all know, Twitter is interoperable on cell phone and SMS messaging.
The founder of the said website, which goes by the name of Mikeyy (a.k.a. Michael Mooney), has admitted full responsibility of the worm which caused this untoward malware spread as confirmed by BNO News.
However, Twitter acted upon to remove the offending updates and block all holes that allowed the worm to spread. In addition, Twitter emphasized that no account information were compromised as part of the attack.
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