Which tactic disguises malicious URLs by using a shortened link?

• A. Email Artifacts
• B. URL Shorteners
• C. Homographs
• D. BEC

Answer: (B)

Shortened URLs conceal the final destination, which attackers exploit to hide a malicious site behind a seemingly harmless link. When a link is shortened, you can’t tell where it will actually take you just by looking at it, making it easier to fool someone into clicking. In phishing or malware campaigns, the attacker uses this to direct victims to a credential-stealing page or to download malware, while the visible link appears trustworthy or matches a familiar brand. Some security tools and people don’t expand these links, so the true target isn’t obvious from the surface, increasing the chance of a click.

Email artifacts are traces investigators examine after an incident, not a tactic to hide destinations. Homographs involve using look-alike characters to spoof domains, which is about deceptive domain appearance rather than masking the destination with a short link. BEC, or Business Email Compromise, is a broader social-engineering scam that impersonates executives to authorize fraudulent actions, not specifically about disguising URLs with shorteners.