It came as an innocent "direct message" Tweet from my reporter friend in Iowa.
Had his picture on it and everything.
It said something to the effect that they thought "You would want to know about all the bad things people are saying about you," and then offered a link.
I'm not immune to people saying bad things about me, so I figured it was semi-legit.
I tend to get busy during the day and sometimes my fingers move across a keyboard faster than my mind can catch up to good judgment.
I clicked on the link. Nothing. Still, having my brain in neutral, I clicked again, because we all know if that darn computer doesn't work right the first time we hit the key, we just keep hitting it again and again until it succumbs.
Thinking nothing of it, I moved on. Then I checked my Droid smartphone at night and saw like seven direct messages from some of my Twitter followers.
They all knew more than me. They had been sent the same message I got from my Iowa friend, who actually knew nothing about it. Many of them knew it was spam and my Twitter account had been hacked.
Hopefully I did not cause too much headache for my 278 Twitter followers. Some were very understanding except for the one who said "Mr. Spear has clicked on the spam and infected all of us" or something to that effect.
Sorry about that chief.
Of course, some of them had this happen to them and were able to give me the fix. Simply change my Twitter password, which I did.
But the perils of flight in the world of Social Media are likely no less dangerous than perils of flight for birds in the woods, only they are likely to be quicker thinking than me.
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That sucks! When I used to be on facebook, I clicked on a link once that I thought was legit because a friend had posted on my wall. Guess what it was? A virus. I know that feeling. You are like it must be legit cause it is my friend's picture and he commented on my page, right? With social networking sites-- there are little hackers or viruses floating around.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to let you know. It is good that you changed your password, but I also hope that you scan your computer for viruses and spyware. That link could have possibly caused a virus on your computer without you knowing. Not trying to scare you. But, that is what I would do. I would do a full computer scan. If you something pops up, check it, quarantine it for a few days and than delete it. Than scan your computer again to make sure that nothing pops up. I hope that is helpful! :)