Twitter Starting to Filter URLs Linking to Malware

Posted on August 5, 2009

F-Secure reported recently that they noticed Twitter was starting to filter malicious URLs. A person attempting to tweet a malware URL gets a message that says, "Oops. Your tweet contained a URL to a known malware site." A source told F-Secure that Twitter might be using a Google API for malware filtering.

The WSJ's Digits blog says the Bit.ly, a popular URL Shortener, also has a spam-filtering system that warns people of malware.

It is good that Twitter and Bit.ly are trying to catch malware. This is a problem that is likely to become more pervasive on Twitter as its popularity grows.