Fake Twitter Profile Links To Worm

A fake profile on blogging site Twitter has a Flash Player link that installs a worm which can steal a user's personal data.

First it was Facebook and MySpace, where messages from “friends” contained a link to install the latest Flash Player – which proved to be a worm that made the user’s computer part of a botnet. Now it’s micro-blogging site Twitter – which is the first time the site has been attacked.

The BBC reports that security company Kaspersky Lab says a fake profile on Twitter purports to have a link to a porn video. Instead it loads a fake version of Flash that in fact contains programs capable of stealing personal data. Kaspersky also discovered the worms on Facebook and MySpace.

The fake profile is in Portuguese with a name that translates to “pretty rabbit.” It exhorts people to click on the link and download Flash to view the video. The problem only affects PCs running Windows.

Alexander Gostev, a senior virus analyst at Kaspersky Lab, said:

"Unfortunately, users are very trusting of messages left by friends on social networking sites so the likelihood of a user clicking on a link like this is very high."