12 tips of Christmas - A safer Twitter for 2010

I thought I would allowance some tips when you on thesafest showing off to use Twitter to keep in be adjacent to without falling victim to the manycrooks targeting social networks.

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12 tips of Christmas - A safer Twitter for 2010


  • 12 apps OAuthing - For Twitter statistics, analysis, or exchange web interfaces, fasten behind OAuth-based applications. OAuth is a safe method of allowing application developers to entrance your Twitter information. Applications using OAuth will redirect you to Twitter to announce the application's demand for access to your account. Websites that directly question for Twitter credentials are often well-disguised phishing attempts.
  • 11 snoopers snooping - Treat the tweet-o-sphere as if you were standing in a pub. Don't state personal details that could be used to impersonate, track, or permit unnecessary contact. If you were in a pub and a stranger asked "Where reach you live?" you wouldn't likely answer "2000 Main St., Apartment B." Instead, you might tell "the East side."
  • 10 tweeps a-stalking - If you are delightful mammal tracked by friends, family, stalkers, and governments, next by all means continue to proclaim your GPS coordinates. Many mobile Twitter applications can broadcast your slope within a few feet using the GPS in your phone and these are on by default. I suggest that everyone disable this feature. Always investigate the options menu in Twitter applications you are using.

  • 9 cautious retweetings - Don't blindly retweet links. Always adequately check out a link previously sending it on. Many spam attacks are socially engineered tweets that depend on blind retweeting to hoard more users into the scam.
  • 8 scammers bilking - Be wary of direct Messages from those you don't know. Many users drop victim to phishing attacks every hours of daylight and their accounts are often used to lure you to scam-laden URLs. These accounts will send you DMs as soon as abbreviated associates that could be malicious.
  • 7 associates a-lengthening - gone shortening URLs, use a further that lets extra users easily preview where they are going. Many companies offering these facilities attain have enough money ways for users to automatically expand URLs, including Bit.ly (Or add a benefit sign upon the stop of the URL), TinyURL, and is.gd.
  • 6 so-called deletings - Delete doesn't point toward it's gone. You can now delete tweets, but unlike emails, they cannot be rescinded. Deleted tweets may no longer doing in the works in your timeline, but the message will have been delivered to mobile phones more than SMS and to third-party Twitter clients that will not forget your indiscretions.
  • 5 not-so-private tweets - As later than Facebook, privacy on Twitter is not appropriately private. Protecting your tweets provides a degree of security, but you nevertheless rely upon your links to avoid falling victim to a scam. Hackers depend upon the trust we have for our associates and intimates and will use their accounts to hoard your most personal details.
  • 4 pal impersonations - Be wary of concentrate on Messages from your friends if they seem out of context. As next random DMs, you may wish to check the edited associate at longurls.org. next my connections send me DMs with "Increase your followers by 4000%!", I know that it's grow old to choose up the phone and allow them know they have been compromised.
  • 3 @spam alarms - Follow @spam for recommendations and alerts united to Twitter scams. Don't click associates in emails appearing to be from Twitter either, always use a client, or the twitter.com website directly to assert followers, respond to DM's, etc.
  • 2 password changes - If you quality your password may have been compromised fiddle with your password immediately. What is less obvious is that you must next revoke right of entry to the Twitter API for any applications you are using and re-register them. If the criminals who have stolen your credentials still have API access they can continue to impersonate you.

  • And avoiding those work celebrities - state the identities of people you follow where possible. If you are past a company (like Sophos!) or a celebrity, you can often locate their real twitter ID upon their website. There are more than 50 variants of Britney Spears, many of which are scams.



Thisarticle was written by Chester Wisniewski of Sophos and is published here gone their fullpermission. Sophos provides full data auspices services including: securitysoftware, encryption software, antivirus, and malware protection.


12 tips of Christmas - A safer Twitter for 2010
12 tips of Christmas - A safer Twitter for 2010
12 tips of Christmas - A safer Twitter for 2010

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