Twitter Scams – The Guide From Semalt

Twitter has been making waves in the world of social media for several years. In fact, the first tweet was sent eleven years ago in March 2006.

For National Cyber Security Awareness Month in 2016, The State of Security published some articles offering advice on how you can safely navigate social media. Julia Vashneva, the Semalt Senior Customer Success Manager, warns all users who share too much information and post revealing images online that they could potentially invite hackers to their profiles. The hackers then try to steal your personal information and files. Some of the attackers make more connections with your friends and visit their personal profiles. They seize control of their profiles, their identities, and money.

Money-based schemes

Twitter has impacted our lives and changed the way we communicate with the world. Unfortunately, it has been the hub of various scammers and hackers. One of the most common Twitter scams is when users tweet about other people's services and products. A large number of people pay upfront to get a "Twitter Cash Starter Kit." In recent months, various victims have reported that they purchased the starter kits and were charged hidden membership fees. Most often, the victims have no choice but to cancel their PayPal IDs or debit cards. Let me here tell you that there is no such option on Twitter, so if you are asked to pay something in advance, you should keep yourself away from such offers.

Bot Spam

This computer program has been designed to assist in sending and receiving of spam. Spambots create multiple accounts and send fake messages to a large number of people. Often, attackers use a variety of bots to mimic human beings and interact with the potential target. Blogger and social media security officer Graham Cluley says that thousands of emails were hacked in 2009 because of a spam campaign. In this campaign, users tweet several images of a scantily clad lady. Those pictures contain an embedded message that read, "Your Loving." Bot spam is far more common in the under-developed countries than the developed states. In 2014, over 20 million bots were identified by Twitter.

Pay for Follower Ploy

Pay-for-follower bots have the ability to get someone hundreds of Twitter likes and followers for a minor fee. You must have seen profiles that aim to deliver numerous Twitter followers for $5 to $10. Some services even claim that their fans will be active, while others state that they are providing country-based followers for as low as $4. Let me here tell you that most of the pay-for-follower providers are non-genuine. They will either provide you with fake followers or will disappear with your money. If you have engaged any of these services, you would be accused of distributing spam on the internet.

Illegitimate DMS

Michael Krigsman from ZDNet says that hackers love to target every facet of users' profiles, including their images and inbox. They begin this process by sending direct messages that look genuine and legitimate. Once you add them to your profile, they use your Twitter credentials to access your profiles. A large number of Twitter accounts are compromised every year due to this act. Malwarebytes' senior security officer Jerome Segura said that he received more than 400 fake messages on Twitter the previous year.

Worms

A computer worm replicates itself to spread to other computer systems and mobile devices. It is a least common type of scam, but worms still pose serious threats to social media users. Most recently, the Mikeyy worm used JavaScript to affect a large number of Twitter profiles. At that time, anyone who visited those profiles got infected within seconds. The Mikeyy worm was one of the most dangerous forms of online scams in 2010. As of now, Twitter worms have decreased in number and do not infect users due to their limited characteristics.

Conclusion

It is important for us to know everything about social media frauds. Twitter is not the only platform that has thousands of users, Facebook and LinkedIn users should also pay attention to their online security.