Search Marketing Communications

Today I received a direct message from my personal trainer that was out of character for two reasons.

1. The direct message was about weight loss – which neither of us are in need of.

2. My personal trainer barely knows how to use Twitter let alone direct message me.

Twitter Direct Message

Ordinarily, I would have chalked up this type of abnormal behavour as just that – abnormal.

However, my personal trainer is a pretty normal guy.

Once I received his direct message this evening I called him and asked him if he had sent it and he said no -what is it?

His response in turn made me question the series of Tweets his account posted yesterday that were also out of character.

His Tweets were about how much money he was making on Google.

Again totally out of character for my personal trainer.

Twitter Hacked

What was even more revealing about his Tweets was they were each posted via API.

API is a term my personal trainer doesn’t know the meaning of – let alone have access to or use.

I decided to search Twitter for the url embedded in his Twitter Direct Message to see if it was being widely Tweeted by other Twitter users.

Twitter Accounts Being Hacked

Yep – appears to be.

Based on the frequency and number of accounts Tweeting with this particular weight loss domain embedded in each Tweet leads me to conclude: Twitter accounts are being hacked en masse.

A search for “direct message” in Twitter search also reveals Twitter account holders asking their followers whether they sent the “weight loss” direct message or not.

The hacked accounts appear to be mostly lower Tweet volume accounts.

Tags: Search Twitter, Tweet, Tweeting, Twitter, Twitter Accounts Being Hacked, Twitter Direct Message

This entry was posted on August 18, 2009 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Search Twitter, Tweeting, Twitter, Twitter Direct Message, Twitter Hacked. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.