Twitter scareware attack signals new social networking security problems

The arrival of what appears to be the first scareware distribution attack on the Twitter microblogging service at the weekend, signals the fact that firms need to think very hard before allowing staff access to these advanced types of social networking applications, says Finjan, the business Internet security specialist.

According to Finjan, this weekend’s scareware attack – in which Twitter users were invited to click on a ‘best video’ link but also ended up being quietly infected with a rogue security application – signals a worrying new trend in social Internet site attacks.

This weekend’s Twitter scam was a complex one with users invited to click on what appears to be a YouTube video, but the embedded program call also opens an IP connection to a second site, resulting in the download of a malware-infected PDF file that later installs a rough anti-virus.

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