Thousands of Twitter users continue to endure tweets telling them to "get the beach body you've always wanted" possibly because one third of Internet users still insist on using the same password on multiple websites.
"The messages link to what pretends to be a news website, but is really designed to promote an Acai Berry 'miracle diet' marketed as 'Power Slim,' " reports Sophos. "The product claims to have been seen in the pages of Women's Health, Elle, Marie Claire, Oprah, Cosmopolitan and other magazines."
Sound familiar?
Claims about acai berries made in fake news stories that appear in pop-ups, Google search results, on real news sites (including msnbc.com) and even on WebMd.com got the beatdown earlier this year by the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC filed charges against companies and individuals for allegedly blurring the lines between advertisements and journalism by promoting false information about acai and colon cleansing. In some cases, companies and individuals were hit with temporary restraining orders preventing assets from being moved or records from being destroyed. The offending websites must prominently display a statement that they are being sued by the FTC, or be removed from the Web.
Meanwhile, this latest Twitter spam scam seems familiar as well.
"It could be that the users' passwords have been compromised, similar to another Acai Berry spam campaign we saw on Twitter at the end of last year following the Gawker password breach," writes Graham Cluley, Sophos senior tech consultant.
Hackers used passwords grabbed in the Gawker hack to infiltrate user accounts on Twitter and other sites. As Cluley points out, "Too many users (perhaps as many as a third) are still using the same password for every website they access."
If you find your Twitter account suddenly spamming your followers, change your password right away — on Twitter and anywhere else you're using that same password. In fact, even if you haven't been hacked, why not take this moment to switch up your passwords to the Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts you know you totally have open at work right now?
Here's a video from Sophos to help you think up some good ones:
More on the annoying way we live now:
- Google+ promises heads' up before it dumps your fake account
- Facebook's 'tweaked' photo changes are no big deal
- Twitter users spread 'Unfollowed Me' virus
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.