Twitter Hit With Avalanche of Spam From Hacked Accounts

The social network Twitter was flooded with malicious posts Wednesday from thousands of compromised accounts.

The posts seem to take a familiar advertising a spam form — e.g. “If I didn’t try this my life wouldn’t have changed. [link]” — and it is not clear if the posts are seeking to install malicious software or something else. In at least one instance the link leads to a website purporting to sell women’s health products, Ars Technica reports.

The attack appears to be related to security breaches at third-party sites like the social network We Heart It and other apps, like Twitter for iPhone. The incident underscores the potential for cascading problems online as security breaches affect other sites in the increasingly intertwined and interdependent network.

[Ars Technica]