Twitter is a great way to keep in touch with the world and have the world keep in touch with you. However from time to time Twitter is attacked by people who want to steal your account.

This guide will clue you into how the attack works so you can avoid it. Please pass this onto your network of friends. We are part of the problem and together we can bring it to a swift halt.

The most common form of mass attack on the Twitter network are poisoned tweets. These messages arrive from a person you follow and who follows you and come into your Direct Message box (private messages).

The message is usually very short and wont mention anything specific to you, it may say:

Hey This You
LOL Look at this
Take an IQ Test

It will be also have a link with it, this is where the poison comes in. The link points to a website that has itself been compromised.

It may look just like Twitter.com tricking you to give it your Username and Password or the site may be full of virus and malware designed to steal your personal data.

Always double check you are on Twitter.com if you arrive at a site that looks like Twitter.com through a link on Twitter, its easy to be tricked!

The result is that your Twitter account becomes compromised and you start sending out the same messages you recieved to your friends. You can  think of this in the same way as a real world cold by coming into close contact with the infected person you become infected and pass it on in turn.

Stop the twitter infection

It is so simple to stop this attack in its tracks. DO NOT CLICK LINKS IN DIRECT MESSAGES!!! and definitely if its really short and the URL doesn't look like a Bitly or a Tinyurl.

Just seeing the Tweet will not infect you but clicking the link will certainly raise your chances of being infected if you enter your username and password into a compromised site it's guaranteed you will become part of the infection swarm.

How to heal the infection

This is really easy, log into your Twitter account and change your password. This locks out the server that is using your account to send the messages.

If you can't login to your account because the password has been changed your can use the Twitter Password Reset tool to trigger a reset and give Twitter a new password for the account.