At the moment there is a scam being spread on twitter.  You need to be aware of it and know what to do if you get caught out by it.

If you receive a tweet or a direct message that says something along the lines of: “Have you seen what people are saying about you? Terrible things..” followed by a URL web link, DO NOT CLICK ON THE WEB LINK.  This tweet or message will not have been sent by the person who owns the relevant twitter account. It will have been sent to you by the hacker who hijacked their account. If you click on the URL you are enabling the hacker to hijack YOUR twitter account and send the same spam tweet to all your followers.

If it is too late and you discover that your account has been hacked, follow these 6 steps to rectify the problem:

Change your password

If you are able to, log in to the account, click settings (upper right navigation area) and click the password section. Then change your password.  If you cannot remember your original password in order to login, or it is not working, go to the password reset option on the login screen and reset your password that way.

Revoke access

The end tab in your settings section is called Applications. Here you will find a variety of applications that you have given permission to access and work with your twitter account.  Go through this list and “revoke access” to any that you do not recognize.

Delete spam tweets

Go to your profile on twitter and read through all the posted tweets from the time when your account was hacked.  Delete any that are spam.  You do this by hovering over a specific tweet and clicking the delete icon near the right hand edge of the tweet box.

Tweet your followers

Let you followers know what happened so that they realise that you account had been hacked and that any spam tweets that they read were not from you.

Twitter Support 

Send a brief email to support@twitter.com to let them know that you were hacked but have now regained control of your account.

Update twitter client software

Update your password on any twitter client software you are using such as tweetdeck or hootsuite. Otherwise your account could become temporarily locked due to a password discrepancy.

I hope this is helpful.  

Gleny

All the best from thebestofexeter.

If you need further help tweet me @glenybrookes.

To see future tips and helpful guidelines follow me @glenybrookes