A few weeks ago, Betabeat got a direct message from a coworker. “Is this you in this photo?” it said, with a link to a shortened URL. Long story short, we were had. The virus spammed our followers with some embarrassing message about making money from home. We were goaded about it at parties for oh, the next two weeks or so.
The same Twitter virus seems to be making the rounds again after a short quiet period. “Someone is posting a pic of you all over Twitter!” one friend said. “This video of you is shocking,” said another. We consider ourselves a savvy internet user and it was reassuring to see colleagues in the tech scene falling for the same scam. Ah! we thought. Not this time.
The virus is so widespread that Twitter acknowledged it on the official @twitter account. “We bet you look great in any photo album. Yet, resist the urge to enter your password in unsafe places to see pics.”
