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Twitter users with lax security are blocked

Micro-blogging website Twitter is suspending the accounts of people whose computers have fallen victim to the Koobface malware.

The malicious code has already hit a number of Facebook and MySpace users and has been described as "relatively successful at infecting machines" by Trend Micro's Rik Ferguson.

According to Trend Micro's threat researcher Ryan Flores, a few hundred accounts have been infected by the Koobface malware after making its first appearance on Twitter a few weeks ago.

The software works by sending out bad links to users, disguising them as something else and because Twitter uses an URL shortening service it can be very difficult for users to tell the difference between the malicious links and legitimate ones.

That's real low-hanging fruit for them to address," Ferguson said in a Trend Micro blog post.

Meanwhile, John Bambenek, security researcher at SANS Internet Storm Center, said that cybercriminals are using the political unrest in Iran to spread malicious links via Twitter.

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