In the past year our use of Twitter has increased dramatically. And so has the criminal hacker’s attention to the opportunity to use it for illicit gain.

1. Jacked Twitter Accounts:  Numerous Twitter (and Facebook) accounts including those of President Obama, Britney Spears, Fox News and others were taken over and used to make fun of, ridicule, harass or commit fraud.
2. Social Media Identity Theft: Hundreds of imposter accounts are set up every day. Sarah Palin, St Louis Cardinals Coach Tony LaRussa, Kanye West, Huffington Post and many others have had Twitter accounts opened in their names or names likened to them.
3. Twitter Worms: Worms infiltrating Twitter requesting to click on links would infect user’s accounts and begin to multiply the message. Then your followers and their follower would get it, causing more grief than anything else.
4. Twitter DOS Attack: Victimized by a denial-of-service attack that left the site dark for more than three hours. Reports of a Russian politically motivated attack seemed to be the origin.
5. Twitter as a Botnet Controller: A Twitter account produced links that led to commands to download code to run a botnet.
6. Twitter Phishing: Sending tweets to update accounts or visit spoofed sites where the user needs to enter credentials that allows a financial transaction is rising.
7. Twitter Porn: Please, “Misty Buttons” stop sending me another invite to chat or see your pics.
8. Twitter Spam: The use of short URLs has made Twitters 140 character limit the perfect launch pad for spam leading to diet pills, Viagra and whatever else you don’t need.

With Twitter now a part of millions of peoples daily routines, who login from home or work, Twitter will undoubtedly play a big role in the criminal hacking community in 2010.

Protect your identity:

1. Get a credit freeze. Click on the preceding link and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes your Social Security number useless to a potential identity thief.