Twitter Virus: Kill it with fire

On both Wednesday and Thursday this week, I discovered I had unwittingly and unwillingly spammed roughly 10-15 people with a DM saying I recommended a site to them - complete with virus-laden link. One of the unfortunate souls to receive this message: David Della Rocco. [cue facepalm]


He may just call in a favor from some friends.

What Happened

This virus finds its way into your account via your apps. No, not the apps on your phone, but the apps you give access to - the ones you use to link your Twitter account to other accounts and/or pages.

How to tell if you've been hit:

When you try to login, you'll get a message asking you to verify either your email address or your username. From there, you will be prompted to change your password.

As you enter characters, it will tell you just to the right of the top box how strong your password is. When you verify in the bottom box, it tells you the password doesn't match until you've completed inputting all the correct characters. You're then prompted to check your apps.

If you have apps authorized to access your account, it will look something like this:

From an old acct. I haven't had a Blackberry in a looonnng time.

Since there's no way of telling which app(s) are compromised (unless you only have one authorized, as pictured above), your best bet is to revoke access to all.

If you have not been hit, but would like to take preventive measures, go into your Settings.

From there, you'll need to select Apps, then revoke access on either all (best possible option) or just the ones you haven't used in a while or don't recognize (that's what I did Wed. & it happened again Thurs.).