Malware Abundant in Twitter URLs

In an article entitled Malware Abundant in Twitter URLs: Trick or Tweet? Wired.com reports that “As many as one in every 500 web addresses posted on Twitter lead to sites hosting malware, according to researchers at Kaspersky Labs who have deployed a tool that examines URLs circulating in tweets.”

In our recent blog post entitled “Tweeting Misleading Applications” we wrote about a recent article by Symantec Corp which warns that “Shortened web addresses that are the backbone of microblogging service Twitter Inc. could end up being used by malware authors to infect computers.”

Also in another blog post entitled Protect Your Privacy on Twitter we stated:

What’s Behind That Tiny URL? – Another threat that has emerged as a result of social networking is the tiny-URL attack. Twitter, with its 140-character limit, has made the use of URL-shortening services like Bit.ly a necessity. Unfortunately, attackers can easily exploit a shortened URL to lure users into accessing malicious Web sites.

According to Wired “About 26 percent of Twitter messages contain a URL, according to Costin Raiu, chief security expert at Kaspersky, an anti-virus and computer-security firm based in Moscow. About half of those appear to be generated by spammers or by people with malicious intent, he said. These URLs get spread quickly in re-tweets.”

You can click on Malware Abundant in Twitter URLs to read the full article.

Tags: malware, Malware Abundant in Twitter URLs, Protect Your Privacy on Twitter, Tweeting Misleading Applications, Twitter, Twitter Security