Beware of Twishing!
February 17, 2009
I missed one on the WSJ web 2.0 quiz this morning. (I actually guessed it-but only because it was multiple choice!) Here is the question: What is twishing?
A. An online game like whist
B. Scamming users of Twitter
C. Hoping the T will arrive
D. A Wii-based online dance craze.
Answer: B. Scamming users of Twitter
Like me, you’ve probably heard of phishing scams-the emails that imitate messages from banks or other online accounts-and invite you to login. When you do, you are actually logging into a fake site allowing hackers to obtain your login/password combination and access your real account. Well, twishing is just like that-except it is used exclusively to gain access to twitter accounts. You can avoid the problem by not clicking on suspicious links in tweets or in email. If you do click on a link, carefully examining the URL of the page you land on. For example, if someone tweets or emails a website link to you, make sure you look before you login when you land on what looks like twitter.com. Check the URL, if it says this: http://twitterblog.access-logins.com/login or anything other than http://www.twitter.com, don’t login.
Have you been twished? How about phished? Share your story.
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