Shortened links offer a convenient way to link to websites on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook. After all, who wants to bother with a long, unwieldy URL?
But that shortened link supposedly sent by a friend or acquaintance could spell trouble. When you quickly click on a shortened link, you don’t know where exactly that link might be sending you.
“Bad guys use shortened URLs to distribute malware, spam advertisements and any other time they want to obfuscate a URL,” explains Rick Howard, general manager of Verisign iDefense, a team of researchers who
monitor, interact with and work to shut down e-criminals. “Phishing filters can’t see the actual URL, so they have more trouble blocking these URLs.”
The obvious solution would be to avoid shortened links, right? But that’s not a practical answer, says Howard. These shortened links are ubiquitous on social networks. “Not clicking shortened URLs isn’t a reasonable solution for most people,” he says.
