Twitter ended up being overloaded by an avalanche of spam from compromised reports, resulting in reduced backlinks and pages promising miracle fat reduction, weightloss pills, and products which would “change everyday lives.”
Ars Technica stated that early on into the attack, every single one associated with Tweets contained the tag “via weheartit.com, ” a niche site which hosts services for picture sharing and marketing.
Twitter flagged backlinks in spam as hazardous – CNET described one as ultimately causing pages which spoofed Women’s Health mag, and including expressions such, “If i did son’t try out this, my entire life wouldn’t have changed.” Another web page supplied a “miracle product” for weight loss.
Ars Technica states that researchers have however to evaluate the hyperlink to see if it attempts to put in spyware, but Twitter has actually flagged it as hazardous. The page regarded “garcinia cambogia” – a vegetable herb often utilized in fat loss supplements, and your favourite “miracle diet cure” of spammers.
Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin opinions, “The event is a powerful reminder of just how a security lapse of just one site or app maker can cascade up to other sites plus the thousands of people whom visit them. We Heart It, that December stated it had 25 million monthly users, enables people to share content right on Twitter without making the website, presumably by using the OAuth verification procedure to connect records amongst the two internet sites.”