To tweet or not to tweet

For anyone out there experimenting with Twitter, you are probably aware that with so few characters to use to tweet, you eventually need to look at using a Short URL service to direct your followers to what you want them to read or see.These Short URL services are great and guess what... they are free!  This seems great until you start thinking about potential security risks.  For companies with employees that are sneaking in a few tweets a day at work, those security issues could become a big problem.

Let's start by understanding that anyone following a Twitter account blindly, clicks on the Short URL without really knowing where they are being taken.  In other words, they have no clue of where the destination page is actually going. Which means...an attacker can tweet that he is linking to a new picture of a rare white moose, but instead they are sending the user to a website hosting malicious content.

Organizations need to educate their employees not only on the policies and risks regarding using social media and the potential hazards of social engineering at work, but should also make them aware that they need to pay close attention when using social media sites at home.