What to Do If Your Twitter Account Has Been Compromised

Here's an article Twitter wrote on what to do if your account has been hacked into: My Account Has Been Compromised

Sure-Fire Test for Phishers

The Phishers are crafty devils and are always looking for new ways to trick you out of your password, so they can hack your account. If a "sign-in" site comes up asking for your Twitter password, and you aren't quite sure if it's real, here is a way to test it.

Go ahead and type in your account name, but then type in the WRONG password. If it says "wrong password" then they already know it, and it must be Twitter. However if they accept it, then they are phishers. Luckily they can't hack into your account, because they don't have your real password.

Copy the hackers http address above and send it to @spam on Twitter and tell them what happened. Twitter can only keep up with these crumbs if we let Twitter know about them.

What To Do It You Are Hacked.

Twitter has put out this trouble shooting guide, telling you what to do if your Twitter account is hacked into. My account is compromised! (hacked?)

How Fake Twitter Page Works

Here's a video showing the fake Twitter page I talk about. USA Today

Twitter is Apparently Working on Attack

Mashable's blog from February 20th on the problem: Phishing Attack

Update on New Attack

You won't believe this one. I'm now getting spam for a company called "Call Bling" selling "Male Enhancement" tools. I got half a dozen from innocent people. Each link has a different name but ends with "?rid=http://callbling.com"

I thought the first part of the link was arbitrary. It's not. It's a real website that nothing to do with these people. So the link looks like this.
"http://creativekidspreschool.com/?rid=http://callbling.com". I'm sure Creative Kids Preschool knows nothing about this. Twitter accounts aren't the only ones being used!

New Attack

This morning I got a direct message from half a dozen unsuspecting victims. They read: "lol , this is funny." or "haha, u look funny on here" followed by a link. The links had various names, but they all ended with "http://twitter.secure.bpharma.net/login" It took me to a site with the URL "http://twitter.secure.bzpharma.net/login/" Well, it ain't Twitter and it ain't secure! They want your password so they can hack into your Twitter account and send out messages in your name. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR PASSWORD! If the URL doesn't say "Twitter.com" it's not Twitter.

These usually come as Direct Messages because few people check their sent messages. (Why would you?) It's the easiest way to send messages from your account behind your back. GO INTO DIRECT MESSAGES AND CHECK "SENT". If there are any messages you never sent, erase them at once. Change your password. Also go into "Settings" find "Connections" and revoke anyone access you don't want.

If you recieve any of these remember: the person who "sent" them knows nothing about it. Don't get mad at them. TELL THEM TO CHANGE THEIR PASSWORD! Tell them to erase the message and warn their followers. If you "politely" ignore it you will only be helping the hackers who are using innocent people.

We have to watch each other's backs!