I could blame it on Klout, but really, it’s my own damn fault.
A few days ago, I was using HootSuite, an excellent social media monitoring and updating tool, to check my Twitter streams. I look at the Mentions stream frequently, to see if anyone has done an @mention of me; in my case, that would be @james_a_martin, as that’s my Twitter handle.
I discovered an @mention from someone I’d never heard of. The tweet simply consisted of my Twitter handle and a bit.ly link. Naturally, I was curious, thinking someone had mentioned me in a blog post or whatever–the kind of thing that can help improve your Klout score.
I clicked the link. Up popped a browser window informing me that I’d been entered to win a free iPad. Translation: You’ve just clicked on malware.
Having used a Mac exclusively for the past two years, I haven’t bothered to install anti-virus software. I asked my tech-support guy, the excellent Paul Bray, for help. He suggested I download, install, and run a free Mac program called Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition, which I did. It found 52 ‘threats’ on my iMac, most of which were the same virus/malware that I obviously downloaded by clicking the Twitter link.
The malware’s name, by the way, is Mal/Badsrc-C, which has been around since 2008 and according to Sophos, only affects Windows machines. The perpetrator’s Twitter name, unfortunately, I can’t supply, for not long after I clicked the malware link, I went back to HootSuite to find the perp’s Twitter handle so I could report it. The @mention of me was gone from my stream, obviously deleted.
So a painful lesson learned: The act of malware spreading is getting personal on Twitter, and you could be next. Please stop and think for a second before you click a link in an @mention of you from someone you don’t know.
