Twitter Phishing Scam Warning; House Speaker Kirk Adams Doesn't Really Want Your Twitter Login Data

The Twitter direct message from Kirk Adams, Arizona House Speaker, looked suspicious at first glance: It turns out that someone may have hijacked the Speaker's Twitter account temporarily and used it to spread a phishing scam that began blazing across the Internet this weekend. Clicking on the accompanying link takes computer...

By Ray Stern

February 22, 2010

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The Twitter direct message from Kirk Adams, Arizona House Speaker, looked suspicious at first glance:

It turns out that someone may have hijacked the Speaker's Twitter account temporarily and used it to spread a phishing scam that began blazing across the Internet this weekend.

Clicking on the accompanying link takes computer users to a site that looks just like the Twitter login page -- but the URL is different.

Needless to say, it's a terrible idea to enter your name and password on that page.

Adams' Twitter account was one of thousands affected..

The phishing scam seems to have only resulted in problems with unwanted direct messages, and didn't mess up Adams' overall account, says his spokesman, Paul Boyers.

The speaker has since changed his password.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.