Every time a new communication method becomes
popular, fraudsters look for a new way to commit identity theft.
One of the latest popular scams is "twishing."
Twishing is a combination of
Twitter
and
phishing,
uses the growing popularity of the
microblogging service Twitter.com
in an attempt to steal your identity.
Twitter, which limits users
to 140-character messages broadcast to the public or directly to
"followers" who have chosen to receive the updates, is one of the
latest identity fraud schemes because it is growing so quickly in
popularity due to the message length limitations.
Fraudsters jump on new
communication methods because law enforcement is slow to respond and
communications providers often will rush out new technology without
thoroughly testing potential security flaws.
Security flaws enable
hackers to gain access to accounts, but such thefts require some
technical knowledge. It’s much easier to lure someone (the idea of
fishing lures gave rise to the term "phishing") to reveal private
information than to hack into their account. |
Key Terms To
Understanding twishing:
Related Articles
on Webopedia:
|
The idea of luring someone to reveal private information
is nothing new. Famous check scam artist Frank Abagnale, subject of the
movie "Catch Me If You Can", used clothing (e.g., dressing like a pilot) to
lure people to give him sensitive information. While the movie was based on
facts, a fictional television program, "The Rockford Files" also featured the
lead character using fake business cards and smooth talk to obtain
information.
Twishing works the same way. A short public message like
“see what they're saying about you on xyzblog" followed by a link can direct
the unwitting Twitter user to a blog that looks like Twitter, but is
actually a site operated by the fraudster, who then seeks to gain personal
information. Twitter recently changed its look, which will likely deter
twishing for at least a while. But fraudsters are always looking for the
next scam.
This is very similar to fraudsters who misrepresent
themselves as being from a large financial institution while sending out
millions of official e-mails trying to trick legitimate account holders into
revealing personal account information. While most of these e-mails will go
to people who have no banking relationship with the financial institution,
the phishing e-mail will reach some legitimate account holders. The e-mail
will ask account holders to resend their account information – often with
the threat of suspending the account if they don’t.
Some of the
telltale signs that a phishing e-mail is a fraud are typos, poor grammar or
incomplete information in the phishing message. But the message limitations
of Twitter make it easy to overlook such details. Twitter users will use
chat
and text message abbreviations (e.g., “u" for “you") and grammatical rules are largely
ignored. So the hints aren’t as obvious.
However, some of the basic
steps to protect one’s identity work to protect against twishing just as
they do against phishing:
-
Don’t provide personal information online
-
If a message looks suspicious, it probably is
-
Be cautious in opening “retweeted" items. The last
sender may not be aware of the malicious nature of the message.
|
DID YOU KNOW...
According to Trend Micro, as many as 13,000 Twitter users
were affected by twishing scam originating from user @twittercut
in May, 2009. This twish started with a message stating "OMG
I just got over 1000 followers today from
http://www.twittercut.com."
[Source:
TrendLabs Malware Blog] |
Based in Colorado, Rob Douglas is an identity theft expert and has
been fighting against fraud and cyber crime for more than a decade. He
is the editor of www.IdentityTheft.info and a speaker at identity theft conferences
across the USA.
By Rob Douglas, Writer, www.IdentityTheft.info
Last updated:
August 14, 2009
Identity Theft Experts -
www.IdentityTheft.info
Includes identity theft articles, research and videos related to
identity theft protection
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