Web Attack on Twitter Demonstrates Deep Internet Risk

What's happening: Users going to Twitter Friday morning arrived instead at a site for the “Iranian Cyber Army.” The online attack was the result of the most basic of security breaches: someone got the password to enter the master directory of Twitter’s Internet addresses (Twitter's master DNS or Domain Name Server) and redirected users to the “Iranian Cyber Army" site instead.

What it means: There are two levels of meaning here. The obvious level is that social network sites continue to demonstrate that they have yet to get system security under adequate management control.

At a deeper level, consider that users were redirected from Twitter to the “Iranian Cyber Army" site. What if it weren't Twitter but your favorite eCommerce site and instead of being sent to the “Iranian Cyber Army" site you were presented with a site that looked identical to the site you thought you were going to—except that it stole your credit card information or installed malware on your computer.

And what if it's not your favorite eCommerce site but your own company's web site. And now every visitor going to your web site is at risk that malware will be installed on their computer.

What to do: Keep computers patched. Run an intrusion detection and prevention program instead of basic anti-virus. To protect your company's web site, make absolutely positively certain that IT staff is securely managing the master passwords to your company's DNS.

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Web Attack on Twitter Is Third Assault This Year