Brooklyn teenager creates Twitter worm out of boredom
13 Apr 2009
Proving the truth of the adage ''an idle brain is a devil's workshop,'' a 17-year old Brooklyn teenager has admitted to creating two viruses that have hit the popular micro-blogging site Twitter out of boredom. Also, he wanted to promote his own website.
The "Mikeyy" worm posts unwanted messages to users' pages. The "Mikeyy" worm began spreading on the micro-blogging site early Sunday, posting messages such as "Mikeyy I am done...," "MikeyyMikeyy is done.," and "Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy." Not surprisingly, the teenager responsible is named Michael "Mikeyy" Mooney.
"I usually like to find vulnerabilities within websites and try not to cause too much damage, but start a worm or something to give the developers an insight on the problem and while doing so, promoting myself or my website," he said. He also claimed that his site has been live to the public for about two weeks and has 905 members, but that it "is growing quickly because of the worm."
Twitter said it has closed the loophole that allowed the worm to spread.
"We've taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this 'worm' to spread," Twitter said in a statement Saturday. "No passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack."
Twitter has more than 55 million daily users who post short updates on anything from their latest date to their views on Congressional hearings. The service has emerged as a valuable source of information and news, which users can access from mobile devices or personal computers. (See: Twitter overtakes Digg as traffic grows 974 per cent in a year)
