Twitter is facing an issue related to the massive network of fake accounts which are putting all its users at risk of being cyber attacked. According to a new research conducted by a team of experts from the UK, analysts discovered that there were more than 350,000 bogus twitter accounts used to fabricate followers, send spam, conduct phishing campaigns and boost interest in not so trending topics.
As social media has become a heaven for users to share views, photos and a kind of a question bank where they find all answers, it has also become a paradise for mischief creators.
In a recent survey, conducted by University College of London it was found that legions of automated accounts- also called as bots, can serve as mediators of political propaganda or act traders on the black market. On an additional note, the same bots can also serve as malicious software spreading mules, if cleverly nested by hackers.
As per the survey conducted by UK experts, around 350,000 bots were exclusively posting random quotes from Star Wars novels, which majorly include incomplete sentences or broken words at the beginning or end of the tweet. Thus, it appears to users as a legitimate tweet written by real humans.
As a result, the said tweeting handles gain followers and is identified as legitimate users by Twitter Users who either follow them or tag their tweets.
But in most cases, these tweets can sometimes push links leading to malicious content inviting trouble when users accidentally click the links.
Despite regular efforts put by Twitter to remove fake ids, these clever bots have been in prevalence since 2013. One such Twitter handle was Star Wars bots which were discovered by the researchers from the said university.
So, all you Twitter users out there be careful while following and re-tweeting content from unknown twitter handles.
