To Combat Malware, Discord’s File Links Will Soon Be Only Active For 24 Hours
To Combat Malware, Discord’s File Links Will Soon Be Only Active For 24 Hours
Social chat platform Discord is making a change on their CDN (content delivery network) for file hosting: by the end of this year, any links shared externally pointing to the files hosted within the platform will automatically expire after 24 hours, in an attempt to prevent hackers from facilitating phishing attacks through its platform.
In a statement provided to BleepingComputer, the company said: “Discord is evolving its approach to attachment CDN URLs in order to create a safer and more secure experience for users. In particular, this will help our safety team restrict access to flagged content, and generally reduce the amount of malware distributed using our CDN. If users are using Discord to host files, we’d recommend they find a more suitable service.”
Before you worry about your file links in the chats disappearing, don’t worry – the company has clarified that internal links shared across Discord itself will automatically refresh every 24 hours, hence they are not affected with this change. That said, developers will see “minimal impact” as a result, and the company is currently “working closely with the community on the transition.”
This small change should be a big deterrent to cybercriminals looking to use the platform as the attacking source, given that cybersecurity firm Trellix reported that Discord CDN URLs have been exploited by at least 10,000 malware operations to deliver ‘second-stage’ payloads, ranging from stealing credentials, browser cookies (i.e. session tokens) and cryptowallets from infected devices.
Pokdepinion: Good step forward – I reckon most people doesn’t share links of the files uploaded in Discord externally, so it shouldn’t affect much in this aspect.
