Twitter scrambles to block worms

Twitter has patched a flaw in its website that was being exploited to pump out pop-up messages and links to porn sites. Initially, users only had to move their mouse over a message containing a link - not click it - to open it in the browser.

According to BBC News, the code was spread by worms, self-replicating, malicious pieces of code. Thousands of users were caught out by the flaw, including Sarah Brown, the wife of the UK's former Prime Minister.

"This issue is now resolved. We apologise to those who may have encountered it," wrote Bob Lord, security chief at the firm, in a blog post.

"Users may still see strange retweets in their timelines caused by the exploit. However, we are not aware of any issues related to it that would cause harm to computers or their accounts."

The firm said there was no need for users to change their passwords "because user account information was not compromised."
People using the mobile web site or third-party Twitter software - such as Tweetdeck - were unaffected by the bug.

The flaw comes just one week after Twitter rolled out a major redesign of its site.