PandaLabs, Panda Security's antimalware laboratory, has identified fake profiles for many celebrities on Twitter.

Twitter has more than 500 million users, many of them famous singers, movie stars, sports personalities or politicians. Howeve r, not all of their profiles are authentic. Many of them are fake, created to at tract visitors and followers for a range of purposes, although many of these pro files are created by the fans of the person concerned. According to Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, football stars like C ristiano Ronaldo have many fake profiles on Twitter, some of them with more than 15,000 followers and which include the word official, although the tweets are i n Swahili. Fake Cristiano Ronaldo Twitter profile with more than 15,000 followers: http://p ress.pandasecurity.com/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/CR7.jpg The President of the United States, Barack Obama, also has a fake profile on the social network. Although the bio of his fake profile includes a link to a Russi an page, more than 91,000 are following him. Fake Obama profile on Twitter: http://press.pandasecurity.com/usa/wp-content/upl oads/2012/12/OBAMA.jpg There are even multiple fake accounts for renowned media-shy celebrities such as Le Gentleman Bradley Wiggins, BBC Sport Personality of the Year and Tour de Franc e 2012 winner. However, the undisputed king of fake profiles at the moment is teen idol Justin Bieber. The young artist has many fake profiles created by his fans, yet others have been created that do not have such innocent objectives. It seems that simpl y including the singers name in a Twitter profile is synonymous with an avalanche of followers. Some of his profiles, with just two tweets from over three years ago, have more than 491,000 followers. Fake Justin Bieber Twitter profile with more than 491,000 followers: http://pres s.pandasecurity.com/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JUSTINBIEBER.jpg Due to its huge popularity, Twitter is one of the social networks on which more a ttacks are launched to compromise the security of users computers. Cyber-criminal s take advantage of the popularity of some celebrities to attract followers to w hom to send malware and spam through their tweets, says Luis Corrons, technical d irector of PandaLabs. If you have received this type of message from the account of a celebrity that you follow, it is advisable not to open it under any circums tances, unfollow the sender of the message and scan the computer using an antivi rus. Twitter considers impersonation on its platform a violation of its rules (https: //support.twitter.com/entries/18311): Twitter accounts that impersonate someone o r an entity in order to confuse and deceive could be permanently suspended accor ding to Twitters Impersonation Policy. Although it also states that parody account s are permitted provided that it is clear in the account profile that it is a fa ke identity. In order to avoid these types of situations, Twitter has a blue verification 'ti ck' logo (), which is displayed in profiles that have been verified as authentic by the social network. Panda Security Twitter page with verification logo: http://press.pandasecurity.c om/usa/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/PANDA_SECURITY.jpg The verification badge helps users to discover sources of high quality informati on and to trust that the tweets sent from an account come from a legitimate sour ce. The badge will appear in the top right of the user profile just above the na me, location and bio. If it appears anywhere else on the profile page of a user (such as in the avatar or in the background) then the account has not been verif ied. Twitter is constantly proactively verifying accounts, focusing on the most

searched for users and does not accept verification requests from the general pu blic. About PandaLabs Since 1990, PandaLabs, Panda Securitys malware research laboratory, has been work ing to detect and classify malware in order to protect consumers and companies a gainst new Internet threats. To do so, PandaLabs uses Collective Intelligence, a cloud-based proprietary system that leverages the knowledge gathered from Pandas user community to automatically detect, analyse and classify the more than 73,0 00 new malware strains that appear every day. This automated malware classificat ion is complemented through the work of an international team with researchers s pecialized each in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware and other attacks) to provide global coverage. Get more information about PandaL abs and subscribe to its blog news feed at http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/. For more information: Visit our main website http://www.pandasecurity.com/ or our dedicated press site http://press.pandasecurity.com/. PR Contact: Neil Martin neil.martin@uk.pandasecurity.com Tel. 0844 335 3791 Follow us on: Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#%21/pages/Panda-Security-UK/23347633 3347893 Twitter - http://twitter.com/PandaSecurityUK Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/PandaSecurity1