Thousands of tweets with links to sites with viruses were launched using phrases alluding to Christmas, warns Panda, who recalls that this is a time when hackers take advantage of the Christmas spirit to spread malware. “Nobody cares about Hanukkah” or “Shocking video of the Grinch” are among the tweets to avoid.
The Twitter accounts used to spread these messages, which contain links to sites with malicious code, are said to have been created for this purpose, says the security software company.
Hackers use search engine optimization techniques (Black Hat SEO), taking advantage of the most popular topics at this time to position their malware distribution campaigns.
Whoever clicks on the link is redirected to a page that infects systems with false codecs, exploiting a security flaw in PDF files that tries to trick users into believing that a download is necessary. What is transferred is a Trojan that takes advantage of the ride to load other types of malware onto the computer.
One of the examples of tweets with problems is the one shown in the image below, provided by Panda.
Panda warns that, in addition to the Christmas topics, the Sundance Festival, the campaign against AIDS, the Carling Cup and tweets about the actor Morgan Freeman are among the top themes most used by hackers.
“Facebook and Twitter are often exploited for malicious purposes, given their growing number of users and the false sense of security they transmit when publishing content on these media. This is why the number of clicks, and consequently of infections, is very high “, explains Luis Corrons, PandaLabs Technical Director, in a statement.
