LONDON, August 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Twitter, the micro blogging site has become the latest target for cyber criminals, intent on stealing data (http://www.tinyurl.com/5rzu28). Social networks are beginning to prove a fertile environment for hackers.

According to antiviral firm, Kaspersky, a fake, malicious Twitter profile has been spotted. It announces a link to pornographic video but instead downloads a fake version of Adobe Flash, which installs programs capable of stealing data.

The attack is believed to be the first to target Twitter.

The language, the servers used to download the Trojans and email addresses used to collect the stolen data point to a Brazilian creator.

The fake profile has a name that means "pretty rabbit" in Portuguese.

Just one week ago Kaspersky released details of worms targeting sites MySpace and Facebook (http://www.tinyurl.com/64kk9v).

Martin Warner is a new media commentator and co-founder of the UK's largest business technology show, Technology of Tomorrow (http://www.tot2008.com). He commented:

"This will not have a major adverse effect. Twitter is not exposed to the mass consumer market, which is more vulnerable. However social networking sites do now need to be more vigilant than ever before. Hackers are becoming more sophisticated and social networking sites, with their sheer volumes of traffic, are a challenge and therefore a target."

Press enquiries to Vicky Lyons and Kully Dhadda +44(0)207-233-7578 mb +44(0)7884246858, kully@flamepr.co.uk

Press enquiries to Vicky Lyons and Kully Dhadda +44(0)207-233-7578 mb +44(0)7884246858, kully@flamepr.co.uk