Spammy scams surfacing on Twitter, Facebook

Users of the microblogging service report spammy direct messages, while users of the social network report receiving links to a malware site.

by Elinor Mills

November 2, 2009 1:18 PM PST Follow @elinormills

Twitter and Facebook users were getting hit with scams on Monday.

Twitter users warned about direct messages that said, "I make money online with google. i learned how here [link]," according to Twitter users.

A Twitter representative said it was not a phishing scam because the site to which the spam links does not ask for a username and password, or look like a Twitter page.

"We're on it and fixing accounts as fast as possible," she wrote in an e-mail. "You can keep posted on known issues as well by checking in on the Twitter Status page."

On Facebook, meanwhile, people were seeing messages from friends that said, "just take a look at it and read it over and try it if you want [link]." The link goes to a site that appears to be hosting malware. Accounts that are generating the messages are likely compromised, and the owners should change their passwords immediately.

"We're aware of this campaign, and are blocking malicious URLs and resetting affected users' accounts," a Facebook representative said in an e-mail. "The link in the spam message is for a work-at-home scam, not a phishing site. We're still investigating, but it's likely people's accounts were compromised through a previous phishing scheme."