TinyURL, Bit.ly, Cli.ng… there are numerous URL shortening services out there, which gives us cute shiny short URL which we can post to tweets, blogs and websites. But this shiny short URL often takes us to malicious websites. The URL masking makes the users difficult to know if they’re clicking on a trustworthy link, or on a link that may send them to a malware site.
The latest in the series is the hacking of the popular Cling URL shortening service. This is fourth popular URL shortening service on the twitter. Sophos reports that, Cling was hacked last Sunday to redirect the users to a story on Twitter hashtags by blogger Kevin Sablan from the Orange County Register. As per logs the attacker IP originates from Canada.
According to Cling, the hole exploited by the attacker is identified and closed and they in the process of replacing the URL’s from its backup.
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