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Second Worm Made By Brooklyn Teen Hits Twitter Site

Posted on: Monday, 13 April 2009, 09:00 CDT

A second worm affecting the social networking site Twitter was created by a teen from Brooklyn who told CNET News that he produced both worms from boredom and wished to bring attention to a flaw on the site.

The "Mikeyy" worm publishes superfluous messages on users' pages. The "Mikeyy" worm made its way across the site Sunday, posting messages like "Mikeyy I am done...," "MikeyyMikeyy is done.," and "Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy."

Michael "Mikeyy" Mooney, 17, stated to CNET News that he made the worm "out of boredom."

"I thought about it later and basically did it because I was bored," he said. "And I didn't think Twitter would fix (the flaw) very soon. But I didn't think it would spread as far or as fast as it did."

Mooney, a high school senior who strives to one day be a security analyst, has been making worms for three years now. He noted that both his boredom with the site and the unwanted attention have made this his last worm.

"I'm done with Twitter," he said. "I've been getting too much attention lately."

The messages endorsed StalkDaily.com, a site comparable to Twitter. Although originally refuting any accountability for the worm, StalkDaily.com posted a note saying,

"I have come clean and have accepted the responsibility for the worm..."

Twitter has taken steps to fix the hole that let the worm move around. "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."

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On the Net:

• Twitter

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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