Web Forgery On Twitter

The other night I started to receive a tsunami of @ replies on my Twitter account. Apparently I was direct messaging a stack of people I don’t know with a link to something that starts http://videos.twitter… except it wasn’t me. The image above is what you see when the link is clicked (and no, I’m not going to give the link.) This is NOT fun. Fortunately, Robert Scoble had picked up on what was gong on and sent the message: @Scobleizer: Don’t click links sent to u in DM @dahowlett & many others are being hit ESP ones that start http://video
At the time I wasn’t near my laptop so couldn’t realistically review the problem. There are limitations to Tweetie on the iPhone. In time honored fashion I didn’t get a reply from anyone at Twitter. Given the nature of the service I didn’t expect to. I’m not the only one. If your Twitter account has been hacked remove apps here: http://twitter.com/account/... This seems how bad guys are getting in. Fortunately there are various suggestions as to how the problem might be solved. The easiest seemed to be a password change. I’ve no idea how the hack occurred, especially given I used a 10 character alpha-numeric password that Twitter graded as ‘good’ but it is yet another example how this popular service can nail you. One very helpful suggestion is to ensure the password you use for Twitter is unique to that service. That’s something you should do anyway.