When Mashable.com cites your website, you know you’re doing something right. Andrew Girdwood must be thinking that as a lot of people are following his lead when Mashable’s Stan Schroeder reported early this morning:

Numerous Twitter users are pointing out that Twitter forced them to change their passwords out of the blue. According to blogger Andrew Girdwood, these users have received an e-mail containing the following message: “Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset,” together with a link for resetting the password.

Although the e-mail itself looks like a phishing attack, it’s genuine; it seems that admins at Twitter have discovered something fishy is going on, and they’re trying to prevent further damage before it happens.

I’ve been reading up on this all morning (with postings from TechCrunch and The Washington Post as examples); and while this situation shouldn’t be taken lightly, I am not scrambling to change my passwords on my accounts. Why?

1. I’m finding out about this scam via Twitter.
2. The people on Twitter are finding out via an “official email” from Twitter.com.
3. On Twitter’s Status and News blogs and on Twitter’s own feed, there is no mention of this phishing scam whatsoever.

Today on Twitter I got an unexpected DM from a familiar name in my network:

When I clicked on the link, I was asked for my Username and Password.  Ummm…no. So I attempted to ping my Twitter contact here and ask if this was, in fact, a real URL. I could not get a DM reply to appear.

And then on the main feed, I saw this from @spam, Twitter’s Spam Hotline:

You might think this is common sense, but it may surprise you how easily people surrender their passwords, particularly from DMs coming from friends and acquaintances.

Be careful!
Someone is out there get phreaky with the phishing.

Just remember these safety twips when you are out in the Twitterverse:

• Never give out your password, even if it’s to someone you know or if they are promising you a bucketload of followers.
• If you do get a DM asking for your password, try to contact the friend on the open feed asking why?
• If someone is, in fact, DMing others with your account, immediately change your password, log out, wait a few ticks, then log in with the new password.
• If you can, change your password for Twitter every 30-60 days.

Twitter is on the case, but make sure you let your fellow Twitterakians know that something  is afoot. Stay safe, everyone, and tweet happy!

Welcome to Birdhouse Rules, the Official Podcast of All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in Ten Minutes.

I know on Twitter i have been promising to cover TweetDeck and my bad habit of double-posting (which on writing these show notes I just did…) but then when working through my follow requests, I got hard hit by the avatar you see with this post. Yes, if you see that image (and the variations on it) you will have been hit by a spambot that prefixes all their IDs with “STi_”. These useless accounts will fill your feeds with random links that serve no other purpose other than to annoy the crap out of you.

But what really bakes my birdhouse about the various “STi_” accounts is that they are posing as real people.

Welcome to spam on Twitter.

In this episode I cover the ways to tell if you are being spammed on Twitter. The offending tweets are broken down into three categories, and we also take a look at how some spammers are working into your feeds in order to use you and a delivery mechanism. Take a look at these screen captures from Stephanie Lloyd‘s account…

If you click-and-enlarge the left image, you will note that Stephanie’s tweets are coming from her feed are coming from recognizable applications. The right image, though, is a tweet coming from an API. That is just one (of a few) ways to tell that the spam your getting from friends isn’t their fault.

So tuck in and get ready — it’s a Feast of Spam at the Bird House.

Guest introduction by Indiana Jim

“Spam” from Monty Python’s The Final Rip Off

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

 

 Episode #2: Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam! [9:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (588)

Feel free to syndicate this audio, and provide feedback or topics you’d like to hear discussed on Bird House Rules at 703.791.1701, tmorris (at) imaginethatstudios (dot) com, Twitter, or here at the Bird House Rules Blog!