Okay Twitter, it's time to clean up your act—literally. The social media platform continues to promote tweets that are actually fake news. The Daily Dot pointed out that a Twitter user realized a tweet claiming to help you get verified was a phishing scam.
The now-deleted advertisement asks for your Twitter password, phone number, and credit card information in order to provide the verified blue check status. "These are nothing less than phishing attempts designed to steal users’ credentials as well as their financial information," Jérôme Segura, the lead malware intelligence analyst for Malwarebytes, explained to BuzzFeed News. "The harvested data is typically resold in bulk on various darkweb marketplaces." According to the site, the two accounts that promoted the advertisement have been removed.
Of course, this isn't the first time these phishing scams were an issue. Many Twitter users were duped last December when they wanted to watch a video titled “Baby Poops In His Onesie, But Dog’s Response Leaves Millions Of People In Hysterics." They had to give a shady website access to their information to click the link. After that, the website began spamming their account with videos the users did not authorize. Back in 2009, there was another big phishing scam that had this simple (but malicious) sentence: "Hi, this you on here?"
Twitter has recently made their verified account guidelines stricter due to these incidents as well as the increased visibility of white supremacist. So, if you are in dire need of a blue check, this is the official website where you can apply.
