A network security guy looking in to some recent cyber-crime found out something interesting: it turns out a botnet was being controlled through Twitter. Finally, it turns out, someone is getting some work done on the popular social networking service.

Twitter was being used as a message relay station to the botnets. So the few hundred infected computers were set up to surreptitiously read the Twitter tweets. The tweets were garbled code, that only the malware would understand.

The botnet was a fairly nefarious one: it would search host's computers for banking password. Remember folks: do at least monthly malware scans with effective programs (personally, I recommend Malwarebytes Antimalware scan or Dr.Web) to make sure you are hosting tons of trojans and other nasty stuff.

The security researcher got a hold of the Twitter overlords and had the account shut down. But Twitter is such a large service that it seems that it would be difficult to find the few Botnet Twitterers out of the all the regular, useful and socially redeeming Twitterer accounts.