Think before you click. That’s one of the themes of several talks that I do, or emails out to staff around nefarious communications that we receive digitally. One I haven’t talked much about is people using twitter as the medium to get you to click through instead of via email. I received this tweet below yesterday and it had my twitter handle @jbellsd60 (need this for the tweet to come to my attention) and then a shortened link to a website.
Three indications that you shouldn’t follow the link
If you look at the name or twitter handle listed that sent it, Warters Quack, it appears to me to be unlikely to be a real name. Not all services may show the name, but might show the twitter account handle and it may be hard to tell just looking at the handle. Although the handles can often be a string of random letters. In this case the handle was wartersexyny6. I’m using Tweetdeck for OS X in my example.
The name or handle can be your first indication that this is some kind of spam or phishing attempt.
Second indication to me was that there is only a link, no text, no explanation. It might pique your curiosity enough to click it, but don’t.
Lastly these kind of tweets are often accompanied by an avatar (picture for the account) of an attractive woman or something that is meant to draw your attention (ie FREE IPAD graphic).
For the example I did click through to the link and since I’m using internet supplied by the Provincial Learning Network, the website was blocked by the filter. Big red screen.
Fortunate in this case as it if you look at the category below it clearly is a website that would try to entice me to enter my personal info. If you were at home and not using filtering software, you may very likely get through to the site… Think before you click!
Report them
Whatever service your are using, or if you are using twitter on its website, there is always a way to report users for spam. When you see this kind of tweet directed to you, please take the time to figure out in your service how to block them and do so. This will help get rid of these accounts and help protect others who might not think before they click.
