[Ipg-smz] The use of URL Shorteners violates security principles

[Dana Blankenhorn]

Great story for someone on the list who does security stories. <ahem>

On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 12:05 PM Tom Henderson <thenderson at extremelabs.com>
wrote:

> Fellow Guilders,
>
> I can give you a long list of ow.ly shortened URLs that will give you a
> malware dose the size of Cincinnati.
>
> ONE SINGLE MISTYPED character will send a user into plain hell.
>
> bit.ly, direc.it, and many other URL shorteners are similarly infected.
>
> May I strongly suggest not using them, please. Yes, your URL is probably
> fine, but a single mistyped character can be explosive.
>
> THESE ORGANIZATIONS DO NOT SCAN TARGETS FOR MALWARE or URL target
> integrity.
>
> Please please please reconsider their use and use the long URL. I have
> been using a highly-sandboxed instance to extract the URL and re-post
> them on places like twitter, but this is getting old.
>
> I can't give you the ones with malware, because you'll get infected or
> your own anti-malware software will trigger (hopefully).
>
> I'm not kidding, please reconsider using them and the
> don't-give-a-hootsuite-type apps that generate them.
>
> These organizations do not respond to URL takedown requests.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tom
>
>
> --
> Tom Henderson
> ExtremeLabs, Inc.
> +1 317 250 4646 <+1%20317-250-4646>
> Twitter: @extremelabs
> Skype: extremelabsinc
>
>
> --
> Ipg-smz mailing list
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>
-- 
Dana Blankenhorn
http://www.danablankenhorn.com
http://investorplace.com/author/danablankenhorn/#.WJzBOzsrLIV
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