A Twitter bug and two Facebook viruses are spreading

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How’s this for public embarrassment? A bug spreading through Twitter today causes infected users to send direct messages to friends promoting a product that makes them ‘feel great and look good,’ as the messages say.

The product? A colon cleanser.

As you can imagine, those attacked by the colon-clearing trick aren’t so happy to offer up the free promo. We received messages from former colleagues and business associates discussing their supposed weight loss secret.

Tweets contain links, some through Bit.ly and others through a secondhand redirect that starts with a ‘q’ and ends in ‘.Info.’ Once clicked, they redirect to a site promoting a product called Cleanse Pro X, which appears to be a fruity pill that washes your body of human waste.

The Bit.ly link has been clicked more than 4,000 times, but we don’t have data on how many people have actually found their way to the site. It’s unclear how users were affected.

Meanwhile, Facebook warned of two new viruses today that target its social network. The tricksters send e-mails purporting to contain password information from Facebook, but instead unleash a virus on the user’s computer.

-- Mark Milian