Daryl Tay.net

I got an email from Marc of Text 100 awhile back:

URL shortening services are great, especially for microbloggers. However they provide fraudsters with a golden opportunity to exploit the service for phishing and spamming. For example we now witness get-rich-quick schemes simply banking on the perceived legitimacy of the shortening service.

In addition:

• Singapore rose from 11th place to 9th for country/region in which the most malicious activity takes place or originates in APJ.

• Singapore came in 5th for top countries/regions of origin for Web-based attacks in APJ, ranked only after China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Globally, Singapore ranks in 26th place.

The advice? Use an URL lengthening tool when clicking on these links so that you can reveal where the true web destination is. I don’t know about you, but my data is precious and I don’t want to lose it, nor let someone have access to my email and other accounts, so what’s downloading another add on to protect yourself!

Full details of the threat can be found at the Symantec blog.