Google's URL Shortener Shortens Your Path To Scams

Sometimes we want to get from Point A to Point B. Sometimes we just ask Alexa or Siri to add an address to the GPS application on our smartphone and that works just fine. However, let’s say I want to plot a route to various, oh craft beer tasting rooms and share it with my buddies for a weekend crawl. So, I go into Google Maps, map it all out and then hit the share option. There is no issue there...except that some researchers at Sophos have discovered a flaw that may allow the unscrupulous among us to redirect that shared URL to a site of their choosing.

The Google Maps sharing feature is not actually an official product. Therefore, there is no way, according to Sophos, to report any bad behavior using it. So, it’s up to users to beware and ensure they are only clicking links for which they are 100% confident are legitimate.The links in this case redirect to a Russian diet pill scam that targets English speakers.

Always be a bit suspicious if you receive links that you didn’t solicit, are not expecting, or some from senders you don’t know. In addition, because scammers, phishers, and the like are using URL shorteners (such as goog.gl and bit.ly) to conduct their scams, be extra cautious when seeing those. If you click one by accident and it doesn’t go where you think it should, close the browser window. Definitely don’t click anything within the window.

Just as a take-away, the goog.gl shortener is on the way out. It is being retired by Google. A phase-out of the product has already begun, and new links should not be created at all by the end of March 2019. After that, some links will be grandfathered, but there should be far fewer of them coming your way. Whatever the case, if you do see a shortened URL, regardless of the product it uses, use extra caution before clicking it. Then you will be sure to imbibe on the right beer route rather than making your friends think they should lose weight instead.

Stickley on Security
Published May 15, 2018