According to security firm Sopho a new virus has appeared spreading rapidly across microblogging site Twitter. The worm hacks into Twitter profiles and automatically sends unauthorized Twitter status updates to contacts from the hacked accounts. Users who look at infected profiles are then automatically infected, and unauthorized posts are automatically sent to their contacts.
It looks like infected accounts are creating posts that mention the Twitter profile names of celebrities such as Kutcher and Winfrey, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. If the celebrities see the posts and click on the profile names they came from, the infection could spread faster, he said.
Kutcher has more than 1 million people following him on Twitter. “If he were foolish enough to click on one of those, he could be hit and potentially affect a million others,” Cluley said.
Cluley wasn’t certain whether the accounts of the celebrities themselves had been infected.
Twitter said Friday it was working to fix the problem.
