Watch Out for Scams Via Shorted URL's
by
, 09-27-2009 at 06:00 PM (6614 Views)
Pasting long URL's (web page addresses) into an email or message box can be problematic, so many people use URL shortening services, such as tinyurl.com, to make these addresses very short. If often use bit.ly, which turns the address of my previous blog post from this:
http://www.dwerden.com/blog3/display_blog.cfm?bid=D50A17B3-998F-762A-6584B59727606607
to this:
http://bit.ly/2hwL0o
Much shorter and more convenient. However, some scammers use this otherwise-good feature to hide the address of a malicious website. So you may accidentally go to a site and find that you have viruses, Trojan horses, or other malware infecting your computer. The newest popular attack using this technique is on Twitter, where posts are limited to 140 characters. This makes short URL's almost necessary.
Computer Radio Talk Show host Kim Komando has a good discussion of ways to avoid this kind of trap. (I like her site for all kinds of level-headed computer advice.) Check it out here:
Shortened URLs can be dangerous