New “11.6 hours” viral scam active on Twitter
Twitter users beware! If you get a message titled “I have spent 11.6 hours on Twitter. How much have you?” do not click on the included link — even if it is from someone you know on Twitter — as it is a malware application.
The scam seems to be spreading, despite the fact that the linked application, called “Time on Tweeter”, ‒ but that may changed by the attackers — actually requires you to authenticate it with Twitter before it does its nasty business.
It just goes to show how careless people can be in giving access to their social networks to unknown third-party applications. Although the gullibility of the general social-network public cannot be denied, perhaps such services should do more to educate users about the harms of such attacks, and get better at detecting rogue applications using their services?
Such scams are common on Facebook where the level of trust between friends is perhaps even higher, but are not unknown on Twitter either.