Twitter targets phishing scams by screening links

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Twitter said Tuesday that it is taking aggressive steps to stop phishing attacks on its popular social networking site.

In a blog post, the company said it has launched new features that can “detect, intercept and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter.’

Scammers have been using malicious links to victimize Twitter users. The new service “strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks,” said Del Harvey, director of Twitter’s trust and safety team.

Twitter will route all links through the service. “Even if a bad link is already sent out in an e-mail notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able to keep that user safe,” Harvey said.

Users won’t notice any difference because the service works behind the scenes, Twitter said. But users may start to see short links using Twitter’s own “twt.tl” URL shortener in direct messages and e-mail notifications.

Phishing scams and other annoying messages have become increasingly common on Twitter.

-- Jessica Guynn