Direct Message: Really horrible blog about you ... a clever phishing trip, said to be from an MP
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-10-14 11:08:23 - Graham EllisI'm just a bit suspicious when I get a direct message on twitter, out of the blue, from an MP who's not my own. And I'm rather more suspicious when he tells me "Really horrible blog about you, might want to read this migre.me/6TEr5" ... for one thing, I'm sure he has better things to do, and for another I can't see many MPs using language quite like that.
Following the link ... and I get to the login page not of "twitter" but of "twittelr" which upon further investigation through the whois database is regsitered as follows:
Registrant Contact:
zhang yu
yu zhang sdfgsdfghf@msn.com
0463965823 fax: 0463965823
changhailu12hao
nanning guangxi 230254
cnI've met enough people in my time, and I'm sure upset more than I would like (one is one too many, but you can't make ommlettes without breaking a few eggs!), so there may be some really horrid blogs out there that I haven't come across. But the MP for another Wiltshire Constituency isn't going to be bringing them directly to my attention via Twitter, me thinks!
The "Really horrible blog about you, might want to read this ..." is, I have concluded, a Phishing trip. Once an account has been compromised, the phisherman and find a list of follows and send a message like this to each of them. Then as some of them bite the worm on the hook, further messages can follow. And the reall neat thing as far as the phisheman is concerned is that the nasty URL doesn't appear in the email - it's hidden within the short URL that we all get so used to, and accept without thought.
P.S. I have altered the short URL to avoid this page driving anyone there!
P.P.S. Just saw a new tweet come up:
"If you have received a DM from me linking to a blog, then please ignore. My apologies. My account has been spammed." ... and I think THAT is genuinely him!