Scammers using search optimization on Twitter, Google

Updated June 5 10:50 a.m. PST to clarify that scammers were blending their tweets in with legitimate tweets on an already popular PhishTube topic.

Online scammers are targeting people looking for popular topics on Twitter and Google to lure them to Web sites that display fake security warnings and try to sell them antivirus products, PandaLabs said on Wednesday.

This technique isn't new, but seems to be widening on Google and is particularly successful on Twitter where links are spread fast and furiously and people often don't think before they click.

Scammers took advantage of the popularity of "PhishTube Broadcast" on Twitter in order to spread links to sites with fake antivirus malware.

(Credit: PandaLabs)

In the Twitter scam, hundreds of fake accounts have been posting tweets that reference the band Phish, which has a cult-like following, according to a PandaLabs blog.

There were so many of the tweets, which say "PhishTube Broadcast," that the term showed up in the Trending Topics list. While there were many legitimate tweets for that topic, scammers posted tweets that contained links that eventually lead to spoof porn pages that infect victims with the fake antivirus malware if they click anywhere on the page, PandaLabs said.

PandaLabs researchers also discovered links to malicious Web sites high up in searches on Google for "Microsoft" and its "Project Natal" gaming technology. The malicious sites display fake messages saying the computer is infected with viruses and offer to sell antivirus software.

The researchers then tried other popular searches and found 16,000 malicious links targeting "YouTube," 10,500 targeting "France" and "airline crash" and thousands of others targeting people searching on "E3," "Sony," and "Eminem" with "MTV Awards" or "Bruno," according to another PandaLabs blog post.

[gareth_wong]

Shortened link has always been the biggest challenge of Twitter.. the other reason was due to the fundamental lack of personal identification for each user (user names are first come first serve).

However, it is evolving and already brings great value to all its users.

If the above plus better privacy features are provided, Twitter in its present form can and will not be surpassed.

In short we need:

1.) pre-qualified/checked shortened links
2.) KYC to qualify each users
3.) better privacy for users to protect their feeds (like me)

Hope twitter stays the market leader, as like LinkedIn, I do not want to change, now that I have started using it properly..

Good luck to all of us!

@GarethWong

[t8]

If these scammers put the same energy into something useful and good, they could have a product that would last longer and hence a longer period of time to monetize it, and no risk of punishment.

Scam URLs are quickly blacklisted and they then usually to create a new domain to continue the scam which marketing the new domain from scratch.

But these losers choose to be evil and take the risk. Some of them end up in prison with a big hairy cell mate who makes them do their laundry. What a bunch of losers.

[Seaspray0]

The scammers are hiding in countries that do very little to enforce laws. If the internet is going to be global, it needs a global police organization. I'm at the point I'm ready to put a .cn and .ru zone into the company DNS to block all resolution to those two roots.

[t8]

I already block both those domain extensions. U have no legitimate communications coming from them, just spam.

[pyn0]

More recently targeting the #googlewave topic.
Stop these fools!

[i0n]

They're targeting more than just #googlewave > http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/archive/Rogueware-campaign-on-Twitter-continues_2E002E002E00_.aspx

[sexy_sofie]

i don't have to think before i click, i run an operating system that is immune to these malicious links. what id10t would run otherwise. why do people spend lots of money on a puter then can't use it because of malicious links. don't click that link, don't open that attachment, don't download that file. sheesh, how stupid ya gotta be?

[i0n]

Common sense isn't so common.

[knowles2]

you know, I surprise these hacker just out in a bit of work an proov you guys wrong, shame you and your system is not worth the effort.
May be they have and the community just have not found the virus yet because are all so arrogrant that your systems impervious, they do not need to check and look.

As to why people spend money on these expensive computers it because they work as soon as they come out of the box and all there cables are plug, no need to hunt down drivers, no need to look through the forums looking for that one bit of hardware that does not seem to work.
They just work when you turn it on, as soon as linux just works out of the box and looks pretty and play all videos games then it will become popular. And only then. But the community is so fragmented, in such self denial it will never happen.

And I agree about you have to be pretty stupid to download these files but people are an those same people would be just as stupid whether they are on a Windows, Mac, or an Linux.

[Harrison912]

I use Twitter as well as many other social sites to help market my safety and security web site as well as raise awareness for its products so information like this is extremely helpful. Thanks, Elinor, for sharing.

[setjeff15081947]

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! ? Tweet ... Tweet!

Good post. Thank you for highlighting this issue. Twitter users need to understand that Trending Topics are being used by scammers and spammers. Twitter management needs to figure out a way to prevent such misuse of Twitter. I blogged on the topic a couple of weeks back.

http://www.twitterthoughts.com/social-media-news-analyses/2009/5/14/twitter-trending-topics-use-and-abuse.html

[slowtimer]

Wow this article is completely bogus. Do your research. Phishtube is not based on a scam. Scammers on twitter always take trends and try to use those terms to promote their nefarious projects, don't single out Jason Wigman. You should at least try to investigate a tad and find out about the leakysecret.

[brienza1975]

poop!

[guvenlik-sistemleri]

Thanks for putting up the information.

<a href="http://www.guvenliksistemleri.info">güvenlik sistemleri</a>