Twitter attack etiquette
Wales Business — By Duncan Higgitt on February 26, 2010 8:00 amI HAVE been propositioned for sex five times in the past 12 hours. Those offers have come from an impressive cross section of society – two fellow journalists, a writer, a businessman and an Assembly Member (no, not the one I work for).
Setting aside my suddenly-discovered sexual appeal, it’s clear that we are under attack. Well, anyone who has a Twitter account, anyway. Not much news about it so far, but since these five people are connected to one another predominantly only through me, since three of them said exactly the same thing, and since I only follow around 130 people (I’m choosy), to have just under 5% of them direct message me in this way suggests that my small demographic may indicate a far wider attack.
What to do? When it happened first of all to the AM last night, there were a number of different reactions. Some people openly messaged the AM to let him know, some tweeted cryptic funnies, like: “I’ve had an AM ask me for sex”, or “Oooh, cheeky” (yes, that’s a loose definition of funny). I direct messaged him, and he was good enough to say thanks. This morning, I changed my password.
There are no hard and fast rules on how to react to a Twitter hack attack. I profess to taking a dim view of those that think it’s an opportunity for brevity or, worse, crow about it. The average Tweep is relatively smart, and it’s hard to believe that anyone would give serious consideration to an offer of sex from somebody they know, particularly if it is accompanied by a link. Just fancy, we all think, they’ve already put it on the internet and we haven’t even got together yet…
It makes sense to offer any help you can if you see a fellow Tweep in distress. After all, it may happen to you. Twitter is highly political, particularly in Wales, and we sometimes follow those who hold wildly different views, if only to track what they’re saying and doing. But Twitter shows us just how much that political landscape has been changed by social media, and making capital out of an opponent’s online misfortune just seems childish.
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8 Comments
@VizTopTips: Alternatively, it is also a good opportunity to send a saucy message to your followers whom you have always wanted to come on to, but never had the opportunity. If you crash and burn, just blame the hackers.
It’s one of those things that’s funny until it happens to you. Hopefully it won’t deter people from using Twitter.
There is a more serious issue here than fnaar-ing at the current spam. If politicians/public figures passwords are so weak (or they are so easy to phish) that doesn’t say much about much more critical systems they may have accounts on. I don’t know the Assembly’s security policy, whether passwords are enforced or user-chosen, but the old “weakest link in the security chain are the users” springs to mind.
Especially when data and confidential docs are carted about on laptops and usb sticks and left on trains and in taxis. Think “cardiffcityfc” is going to cut it as a password?
The current Twitter DM hack may be amusing, but it is a stark reminder to AMs and MPs… hell, to everyone, to take online security VERY seriously.
So: Change your Twitter password, your Facebook password, the password on your laptop etc today. Whether you’ve been “hacked” or not. Make the password hard to crack. Something like “12obyddedirheniaithbarhau34″ is both easy to remember and hard to crack (although don’t just rip a line from the anthem, obviously!). You may think it’s a chore to type in every time, but what price security?
Only one of my followers that was spammed was a politician, Al. Don’t think it’s down to weak passwords and the like. More likely to be sophisticated East European criminals. One for Twitter to resolve, methinks – although your point about changing passwords is well made.
hmm.. afaik (from Twitter blog and security blogs) the current spam is down to phishing. (ie the compromised users have clicked on links and signed into non-Twitter websites – don’t do it! Ever!). I think “sophisticated East European criminals” would be too busy trying to hack stock-exchanges and web-shopping sites rather than wasting their time posting “horny” dms in your account
Twitiquette surely Duncan?
CNN seems to think it’s a phishing scam – http://tinyurl.com/y92omyz. Honestly there’s no excuse for falling for these anymore (watch it happen to me now)
Twittiquette indeed. As to sophisticated East European criminals, by which I mean Russian Mafia gangs, they are behind most of the spam, phishing and hacking attacks (if you discount the Chinese) on the net, and a lion’s share of all online crime. And it’s my understanding that they operate at pretty much every level, from bargain basement crookedness of this sort right up to the scenarios Al suggests.
I knew it was too good to be true. Damn.