The Twitter Trends based attack we blogged about yesterday has expanded from just one trend to nearly all of them! Over the past 24 hours, there have been several thousand tweets targeting trending topics on Twitter and the numbers continue to rise.
Example Tweets:
As you can see from the example tweets, the cyber criminals are targeting twitter trends in real-time. I went ahead and captured every tweet up until about 8PM tonight and put together a Tag Cloud so that you can see what terms were targeted more frequently.
Clicking on any of the links will put you through a series of redirects, at which point you will arrive at a website prompting you to install a fake Adobe Flash plugin (flash_player_plugin.exe). If the so-called “plugin” is installed, then the computer will be infected with Adware/PrivacyCenter.
The emergence of this type of threat distribution method demonstrates how cyber criminals are adjusting and evolving to the newer services offered on the Internet. It’s especially dangerous with sites like Twitter, which offer up to the second updates (or live tweets) of events as they unfold in real time. In the future, sites which promote an unfiltered and open dialog through a global hive of users will have to think twice about the potential threats exposed by features or even API services that they offer.
Panda Security specializes in the development of endpoint security products and is part of the WatchGuard portfolio of IT security solutions. Initially focused on the development of antivirus software, the company has since expanded its line of business to advanced cyber-security services with technology for preventing cyber-crime.
