Twitter links safer than Google?
By Jennifer Scott,
Despite wide-scale belief that short links on Twitter are often malicious, new research has claimed it is even safer to click on them than Google.
A blog post from Julien Sobrier at Zscaler research has claimed the shortened links from the likes of bit.ly and TinyURL are a lot safer than people think after stuyding one million of them.
He found that only 773 led to malicious page - just 0.06 per cent - although he was just looking for phishing and malware sites rather than including spam.
“The key to protecting end users is real-time scanning of both the URL and the content,” wrote Sobrier.
“But remember that only 0.06 per cent of all the URLs tests represented a security risk. It is actually much safer to follow links from Twitter that from some search results on Google!”
In early March, Twitter announced it would be implementing a new system to scan all URLs posted in tweets, but the research was conducted on links posted before this was brought into force.
You may also like...
Sponsored Links
advertisement
You may also like...
Latest Security Analysis & Insight
What is your password worth?
Would you be tempted to sell off company passwords for a fee? If not, seems like you're in the minority, acccording to research.
- Macs under attack?
- Intel: security inside
- Are you spending too much on IT security?
- Does the government want to snoop on your data?
- Eurocrats versus the cyber criminals
- The truth about spam
- Google and privacy: What’s the problem?
- Q&A: Symantec’s CISO on the source code hack
- RSA: Back from the breach?
Latest Security Reviews
Check Point 2210 Appliance review
Rating: 
advertisement
Most popular
- Apple iPad 3 vs iPad 2 head-to-head review
- Dell EqualLogic PS6100XS review
- Chromebooks: What's gone wrong?
- ICO: Fines for cookie law breakers
- UK regulator shuts down Angry Birds scam
- Open source software driving cloud-based innovation
- Fujitsu targets enterprises with Android ICS tablet
- IBM bans use of Siri on iPhones
- Dell PowerEdge R820 review
- BlackBerry 7 OS certified to carry 'Restricted' UK government information
Latest News Videos in Security
IT PRO Podcast: Are UK data protection laws flawed?
PlayWe bring in two experts to talk about the problems with UK data protection law and the way it is managed.
Register for IT PRO
You'll get exclusive member benefits including free whitepapers, downloads, Webinars and weekly newsletters full of the latest IT PRO news, reviews, insight and expertise.
