A hacker apparently accessed the Twitter account of a Florida Congressman late Thursday night, posting messages about fat-loss products. The messages contain a link to a page that appears to contain malware. (After receiving a warning from his anti-virus software, a Twitchy editor elected not to click through to the page.)
As of Friday morning, the fat-loss messages had not yet been removed from the Twitter account of U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, who represents most of Brevard County south of the city of Cocoa, all of Indian River County, and most of Osceola County. The tweets have been appearing every 1-2 hours all morning long.
Twitchy has tweeted the Congressman to alert him to the hacking, but has not yet received a response.
In a previous Twitter-hacking instance, Capitol Hill Police, U.S. House of Representatives security, and Twitter were called in to help figure out what happened.
Warning: Unless you are an IT professional, we recommend you not click on the “channelinfonews” and “channelnewsnow’ links inside the hacker’s tweets.
https://twitter.com/congbillposey/status/208434138674495489
https://twitter.com/congbillposey/status/208450850421612544
https://twitter.com/congbillposey/status/208477764519596032
https://twitter.com/congbillposey/status/208489071851487232
Several Twitter users noticed late last night:
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew/status/208394084585455616
Cut food stamps to pay for defense? RT @congbillposey: How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days http://t.co/H5WLAd1M
— Adam Smith (@asmith83) June 1, 2012
https://twitter.com/keptsimple81/status/208396230924046336
UPDATE: as of 8:29 am Eastern time, the fat-loss tweets have been removed from Rep. Posey’s Twitter account. In all likelihood, this means that Rep. Posey has taken control of his account and ejected the (presumed) hacker. The congressman has not yet released a statement about the matter.
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