Slashdot Mirror
Nearly 90,000 Sex Bots Invaded Twitter in 'One of the Largest Malicious Campaigns Ever Recorded on a Social Network' (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, Twitter's security team purged nearly 90,000 fake accounts after outside researchers discovered a massive botnet peddling links to fake "dating" and "romance" services. The accounts had already generated more than 8.5 million posts aimed at driving users to a variety of subscription-based scam websites with promises of -- you guessed it -- hot internet sex. The accounts were first identified by ZeroFOX, a Baltimore-based security firm that specializes in social-media threat detection. The researchers dubbed the botnet "SIREN" after sea-nymphs described in Greek mythology as half-bird half-woman creatures whose sweet songs often lured horny, drunken sailors to their rocky deaths. ZeroFOX's research into SIREN offers a rare glimpse into how efficient scammers have become at bypassing Twitter's anti-spam techniques. Further, it demonstrates how effective these types of botnets can be: The since-deleted accounts collectively generated upwards of 30 million clicks -- easily trackable since the links all used Google's URL shortening service.
What's with this "nearly" stuff. That's not how to write a sensationalist headline. Though I give you props for using "sexbot".
Someone had to do it.
Even if they can't get their ancient mythology right, they at least got the attack detected.
I thought the spam bots on Twitter were bad.
...a Nigerian prince showed up at my door. Was disappointed, but since I already paid...
have we found a way to get a robot to be POTUS ? That should save on a lot of travel expenses. Just elect new software every 4 years and term limit microsoft and apple.
Nullius in verba
I'm fine, thanks for asking.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."