An unknown number of Twitter users received a message, or 'tweet', from a service called TwitViewer, which purported to provide a list of people who had recently viewed your profile

The tweets contained a link to the TwitViewer.net website, where visitors where then prompted to enter their Twitter login details.

Hackers could use power sockets to eavesdrop "If you gave your login and password info to TwitViewer, we strongly suggest you change your password now," advised Twitter.

It's the latest in a series of attempts by cybercriminals to take advantage of Twitter's growing popularity. Hackers and spammers are using popular Twitter tools, such as web address shorteners, to redirect unsuspecting users to websites that contain malicious software, says McAfee, the computer security experts.

An average of 150,000 computers are infected with viruses, Trojans and malware every day, says McAfee. Between April and June this year, 14 million computers have been hacked in to, an increase of 16 per cent on the same period last year.

Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are favourite targets for spammers and cybercriminals, thanks to the amount of information people share through the sites.

"The best thing is to be aware and to keep an eye on your account to make sure you're not being diverted to somewhere where the codes have been tampered with," advised Greg Day, a security analyst with McAfee.

"Make sure you have a secure password – not something that's easy to guess or tap into."