A Quick Note on Social Media and Internet Security

I spend a lot of time on social networks and have become much more savvy to the tricks that scammers try to use to gain access to your online accounts. I wanted to write this quick post to raise awareness about the potential dangers of clicking unsolicited shortened links. Since the advent of twitter and its use of 140 character messages, the use of URL shortening services that allow users to put links into individual tweets has sky-rocketed. I do it as a matter of course on my twitter feed, for instance using the built in WordPress URL shortener to publicise blog posts such as the one you are reading now. As long as you know and trust the user who has supplied the link there is little to be worried about. But last night, I was Direct Messaged (DM’d) by someone on twitter who I recently started following, but did not personally know. The message made me instantly want to click it and find out more…