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Hey There’s a Bad Blog Going Around About You, Seen it Yet? Bad Twitter Times!

October 17, 2011 By 31 Comments

Alert (19/10 08:36) – Watch out for ‘Found a funny picture of you!’  Twitter spam DMs, they are doing the rounds again. DO NOT CLICK!

I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea (who is, right?) but I can’t believe how many bad blog posts have been written about me over the weekend! I’m so scared to read to them as I can be a real sensitive chap and may well break down in to tears…

That sinking feeling…

So you’ve all had them over the weekend yeah? DMs on Twitter along the lines of  ’Hey theres a bad blog going around about you, seen it yet?’ accompanied by a nasty link? Have you clicked one and then immediately felt your stomach move north as you realise you have been duped? I’d like to think the average Twitter user isn’t stupid enough to do so. Clearly I am wrong as the spread of this spam attack has been quick and massive.

How do you react?

When I receive one of these DMs from a Twitter contact I at first feel pity for them. Especially if the account in question is a business – pissing off your customers with spam DMs ain’t a great impression! The immediate thought is to stop following the account in question, almost as some sort of safe-guard as becoming a victim. The really nice thing to do would be to let them know as not all user may have released their fate. As a brand/business I would suggest you send public tweets apologising and perhaps even write a blog post (you are blogging, right?) that you can direct people to for more information and at the same time educate them in what to click, and what not to click.

What can I do if I have been hacked?!?

  • Change your password asap!
  • Go to twitter.com – settings > applications and revoke access to anything that looks dodgy
  • Never, ever click a dubious link again!!!

Spam! Is it Ham? (image - http://www.spam.com)

What can Twitter do?

Back in July we wrote about yet another really bad weekend for Twitter that involved crazy amounts of spam followers rearing their ugly (well actually quite often pretty) heads. Twitter seemed to get a grip of that after a couple of days. Will this one be dealt with as quickly? The issue here is that users are facilitating the spread by clicking. I don’t have a solution for Twitter, but it’s about time they made serious moves to get a grip of these incidents. I wouldn’t be putting any marketing budget in to a spam ridden network…

Over to you…

Have you been receiving these nasty DMs? Are you a business that fell for it and got hacked up good style? How have your followers reacted? What can Twitter do? Do share!

Update 17/10 21:06 GMT - We just got another ‘Bad Blog’ DM! It ain’t going away folks…

Update 17/10 @ 16:43 GMT - There now appears to be public spam along the lines of:

hey @xyz, @abc. @efg we have been flamed on @bfg’s blog post, check it out – <insert nasty hacker link>

This is a clever approach as it mentions people you tweet with. Beware!

Mike

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Related posts:

  1. A Really Bad Weekend for Twitter
  2. Social Media Helping Small Business Through Tough Times…
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About Mike McGrail

Mike McGrail is the owner of The Social Penguin Blog. He is in the process of setting up a digital marketing and communications consultancy. He likes scotch and leather-bound books. Follow Mike's ramblings on Twitter. He also resides on Google Plus here.

  • http://twitter.com/craigmcgill Craig McGill

    Quite often I have companies tell people that if they want to get in touch, do not DM them as it’s a stream often polluted with auto-thank you DMs or spam like this.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      It can be difficult, DM is fine if the operator is expecting it, if not like you say, messages can be overlooked.

      Thanks for reading!

      • Guest

        This is ridiculous. Changing a password once a week is not a solution!! How can they continue to hack if we stop clicking the DM links and change the password. Sounds like Twitter’s got some splanin’ to do…

        • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

          Yup, Twitter really need to get their act together on this front, it just goes on and on!

  • Jackie Cameron

    One of the biggest challenges is that many twitter users are still getting to grips with social media and don’t yet have a “nose” for spam trouble. I know that most of the people who were apparently alerting me to some funny pic of me had no idea how to do that! I really do hope that Twitter does get to grips with this…each new wave makes me more nervous.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      They get smarter and smarter these spammers and that makes it much tougher to sniff them out!

  • http://ergosocialmedia.com Katia Billeci

    These are account that have been hacked. I often contact the user and let them know, then help them through the fix.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      A very nice approach! Thanks for reading!

  • http://twitter.com/OneAccounting One Accounting

    We got loads over the weekend. Poor tweeters! Its just so important to keep an eye on your twitter accounts even when you’re not actively tweeting.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      Sure is, too many are dormant and get stung! Thanks for reading!

  • http://twitter.com/Brad_Lovett Brad Lovett

    Well if someone wasn’t writing bad blogs about me I wouldn’t be doing my job LOL! I’e gotten a bunch of them, and I will DM or @ the person or business that has been hacked to let them know the situation.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      Very noble of you Brad! Thanks for reading!

  • Maggie

    Must admit my account was one that sent out the funny picture ones, all because I clicked through on a spam DM – didn’t realise what was happening as it was early on when I first set up and it was one of the first DM’s I got and from someone I trusted…so a little scary when it happens. Now much more aware of what it is and watch what I am doing.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      It’s happens Maggie, best thing is to learn early like you did! Thanks for reading.

  • http://newenglandmultimedia.com/ Michelle Quillin

    When I get a suspicious DM, I always let the account owner know, and I never click.

    If I’m certain they’ve been victimized by a phisher (the tactics never change, do they?), I alert the account owner both by DM and a public reply. The public reply is to alert others in my stream who follow the hacked profile, just in case they’re not savvy yet.

    Do for others what you want them to do for you, that’s my policy!

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      Hi Michelle! A very nice approach indeed, checking and then alerting! It’s cant be a nice place to be. Thanks for reading.

  • A twittering fool

    Hi Mike,
    So what if I was dumb enough to click the link…but no page actually came up? It reverted to a generic Twitter page? Do I need to take any protective measures for myself at this point?

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      I’ve not seen the process, for obvious reasons. I would suggest changing your password immediately and checking your ‘connections/applications’ menu on twitter.com and revoke access to anything that looks suspicious. Good luck.

    • Terrance Cormier from Mavome

      Twittering fool,
      The generic Twitter page you claim to have seen was actually not a Twitter at all but a cleverly disguised URL that was something like twitter.co (missing the m) or twltter.com (an l instead of an i) and then a page that looks identical to Twitter to dup you into entering your username/password and logging in. Once logged in you are directed to your typical Twitter feed while the spam artist have collected your Twitter UserID and Password.

  • http://www.openplus.co.uk/news/uk-retail-consultant Killian @ Open Plus

    Interesting, and, well, also dull and boring obviously (!) to see that this peaked over the weekend. We certainly got quite a few such messages. We’ve been getting them for a while though. The first wave was “I saw this hilariously humiliating photo of you” or something like that – a few weeks ago. “Um, so like a photo of our company logo?!” You’re right to point out that Twitter should do something about it and fast. It can be hard enough to argue for Twitters RoI – as SP pointed out a few weeks ago – without having reputation damage as a corresponding risk to contend with. Not good!

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      Hi Killian,

      Wave after wave! This one is pretty clever in comparison to previous efforts. We are seeing massive levels of searches related to it landing on TSPB which tells us many people are clearly affected. My lack of technical mind prohibits me from coming up with a solution for Twitter! Perhaps they need to educate their users more?

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  • http://twitter.com/Calzo Callum James Greens

    Does anyone know what the link does when you click on it? Is it a trojan or does it just hack your twitter account?

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      I think it’s just a straight hack, change of password should fix.

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  • http://twitter.com/777productions Deon Fialkov

    Yes, I fell for this message. Guess as I’m not familiar with twitter as I was using facebook all the time. After I clicked the link it showed that twitter had timed out …but as I do have an IT background I thought I’d wait before entering any of my login details. I decided to rather close that internet browser and then google part of the message to see if something was written about it…that’s how I found your article – very well written !

    This is a copy of her tweet
    “Some sort of bad blog/post is going around about you http://palsea.ru figirued i’d bring it to your attention. ”

    I did tweet to her
    @her-name Hi Just got a strange inbox from you – do you know about it?

    because I can’t send a direct message (dm) to her as she’s not following me

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      Hi Deon,

      I’m sorry you fell for the trick, if you are not that familiar with Twitter it can be easy to do. Did you then get hacked? It was nice of you to try and contact the person that had been hacked.
      Thanks for the kind words and taking the time time to comment.

      Thanks

      Mike
      Sent from my iPad

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  • http://www.jlist.com Peter Payne

    Why in the HELL does Twitter allow this? It’s some website or websites registered with Twitter, yet they don’t investigate the source and yank their access permanently? I follow a lot of people so I get these daily.

    • http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com Mike McGrail

      They really do need to get a grip of it, it never really seems to go away, infact, it gets worse.
      Sent from my iPad