Los cyber criminals They don’t go on vacation. attempts to computer attacks to steal passwords and impersonate the identity of the victims skyrocket during the summer season. One of the methods uncovered in recent days seeks to deceive its targets through direct messages on Twitter posing as an official account of the support team of the digital platform.
The @helpmediacentre account, already removed from the red social, has sent its potential victims messages notifying them of an alleged violation of image rights and threatening them with deleting their account if they do not respond to an external form. Dressed in an official tone as if it were a Twitter release, that alert is really a hook for the target to click on a malicious link which redirects to a page where you are asked for your account and email passwords. This was explained by the journalist Anna Punsí, victim of this attack.
That method is known as ‘Phishing‘ and is the one most commonly used to infect the victim’s mobile or computer. Opening that link means opening a back door in your system so that the cyber criminal can infiltrate to steal your passwords and manage to impersonate your identity. 44% of Spaniards have been victims of this type of attack, according to a Microsoft report.
As reported by the reporter and journalist Albert Cuesta, also a victim of the attack, given the refusal to deliver the credentials, he has received more messages posing as Twitter employees. If they had put the passwords in that external form, the attackers would have had the key to access the Twitter profile and the email to be able to impersonate the victim’s identity. This can be used to launch further attacks on third parties or as a ransomware hijacking method known as ‘ransomware’.
Attack from already stolen accounts
The @helpmediacentre account has been deactivated following user complaints. However, screenshots prior to its closure show that was active since August 2009 and had almost 30,000 followers. For what is this? From Twitter they explain to us that it was the account of an individual that cybercriminals stole a short time ago and made up to pass themselves off as an official account of the platform, a recurring practice. After detecting it, Twitter has returned the account to its owner. That’s why @helpmediacentre doesn’t show as suspended, but as not existing.
To avoid being a victim of this and other types of attacks, Twitter recommends activating two-factor authentication, which reinforces the security of your account. As already explained in its official account, the social network remembers that never ask users for their passwords and warns not to share sensitive information in unofficial forms.