Researchers Stop Malware In Shortened Links On Twitter

Researchers have developed a system that malicious shortened links on Twitter to identify and stop. The system will be tested next year during the European Football Championship, as reported in the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Together with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) the SPSRC has funded the research. For the study, the researchers collected links during the recent World Cup cricket and the Super Bowl were sent out and investigated the interaction between a website and the computer to determine whether there was an attack. In case occurred adjustments on the computer, such as new processes, custom registry files or modified files, there was malware.

Then the researchers used system activities, such as data exchanged between the computer and a remote server, processor utilization and status of the network to get to know the system to the signs of a malignant and benign link.Researchers from Cardiff University which conducted the study to determine knew within five seconds with an accuracy of 83% or it was an attack or not.

Within 30 seconds% accuracy to 98% were incurred as a user clicked on a shortened link and malware to the infected computer. "Because links on Twitter are always abbreviated due to character limitations in messages it is very difficult to determine which are legitimate," said Pete Burnap of the University and leader of the study. "We have the European Championship next summer, which will cause a large spike in Twitter traffic and we expect to test our system during this event."