How bad guys lead you to sites you get trapped into

  • Team Omega
  • September 10, 2013

Unified Resource Locator (URL) as we all know is the address of a web site.  Any url consists of the website protocol the (http or the https), the domain, which is the name of the web site, and thirdly the page you will be visiting on that domain. For eg. https://www.omegasecure.com/old-omega/index.php?page=why-us.

If a URL is too long as we see in the case of this amazon site, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FSEAHY/ref=xs_gb_A1E2MIC27MS7ZA?pf_rd_p=441937901&pf_rd_s=right-1&pf_rd_t=701&pf_rd_i=20&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1C7KQYS3CB1MR4GJ2A51, we generally shorten the site link to be able to send this in an email or want to post it on a blog or twitter site. 

Attackers use the same tactic.  They come up with shortened links to dupe viewers into visiting their malicious Web sites.  If you are doubtful about the link of a site you are being led to, check the source of the site.  You can do this by adding a ‘+’ sign to the end of the shortened URL.  Here’s the test.  I took the long URL from the Amazon link, shortened it via the tinyurl.com site and added the ‘+’ sign, http://tinyurl.com/poya8pr+.  If we look at the actual URL it will show you the domain to be an Amazon Web site.  That should be proof enough for you to know that it is safe.  A malicious site will show you a different domain.

Keep reading our blogs. Omega ATC brings many educational articles to your desktop to keep you updated on data security so you can protect yours and your company’s data. To contact us, visit https://www.omegasecure.com/old-omega/index.php?page=contact-us.