Twitter typosquatting increases

Following the attack last week, increased levels of direct message phishing and typosquatting have been spotted on Twitter.

According to Websense, a phishing campaign has propagated via Twitter's direct message functionality has triggered a marked increase in the number of ‘bit.ly' shortened urls distributed, specifically related to one account.

Users from all geographies were falling vitcim and following the malicious links. The URLs lead to phishing websites that attempt to capture user passwords and are often Twitter typosquatting sites.

“Should you fill in your account credentials, they'll be snaffled by those behind this nefarious scheme and you'll be presented with a fake '404' page not found error before being whisked back to the official Twitter website as if nothing happened.”

Websense EMEA senior security research manager Carl Leonard said the tactics were old but effective.

“The attackers are confirming that it is an online presence that they are interested in, here they are using every trick in the book to make an effective attack.”

This article originally appeared at scmagazineuk.com