[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-84704-en":3,"doc-seo-84704-105":28,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":11,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":26,"read_time":27},84704,549758252649,"Ivy","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/8000253669c5317157?_k=1778319167496531819",8,"Research & Report","An Exploratory Study of Malicious Link Posting on Social Media Applications","Social network platforms are widely used for communication, and link sharing is a common feature that can be abused by attackers. Malicious or deceptive posts can hide harmful URLs and trick users into compromising devices, yet it remains unclear how major Android social media apps detect and filter such links. This exploratory study evaluates the performance of five Android social media applications against malicious URL sharing, focusing on filtering and defenses. Results indicate most apps lack an effective defense, highlighting a significant usability-relevant vulnerability that attackers or unaware users may exploit.","An Exploratory Study of Malicious Link Posting on  \nSocial Media Applications  \nMuhammad Hassan  \nUniversity of Illinois at Urbana Champaign [mhassa42@illinois.edu](mhassa42@illinois.edu)  \nMahnoor Jameel  \nUniversity of Illinois at Urbana Champaign [mjameel2@illinois.edu](mjameel2@illinois.edu)  \narXiv :2607 .04042v 1 [ cs . SI] 4 Jul 2026  \nMasooda Bashir  \nUniversity of Illinois at Urbana Champaign [mnb@illinois.edu](mnb@illinois.edu)  \nAbstract—Social network platforms are now widely used asa mode of communication globally due to their popularity and their ease of use. Among the various content-sharing capabilities made available via these applications, link-sharing is a common activity among social media users. While this feature provides a desired functionality for the platform users, link sharing enables attackers to exploit vulnerabilities and compromise users’devices. Attackers can exploit this content-sharing feature by posting malicious/harmful URLs or deceptive posts and messages which are intended to hide a dangerous link. However, it is not clear how the most common social media applications monitor and/or filter when their users share malicious URLs or links through their platforms. To investigate this security vulnerability, we designed an exploratory study to examine the top five android social media applications’ performance when it comes to malicious link sharing. The aim was to determine if the selected applications had any filtering or defenses against malicious URL sharing. Our results show that most of the selected social media applications did not have an effective defense against the posting and spreading of malicious URLs. While our results are exploratory, we believe our study demonstrates the presence of a vital security vulnerability that malicious attackers or unaware users can use to spread harmful links. In addition, our findings can be used to improve our understanding of link-based attacks as well as the design of security measures that usability into account.  \nI. INTRODUCTION  \nSocial media and networking platforms have made communication and sharing more convenient, hence increasing connectivity in the online world. In 2021, 72% of the US adult population reported using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc [12] . People share their regular life updates and opinions with their friends, family, and colleagues by posting and exchanging messages on social media applications. These platforms also allow their users to share external content among their social networks of friends and followers as well by posting external links. These functionalities make social media usage meaningful and interactive for their users.  \nSymposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC) 2023  \n27 February 2023, San Diego, CA, USA ISBN 1-891562-91-6  \n[https://dx.doi.org/10.14722/usec.2023.234399](https://dx.doi.org/10.14722/usec.2023.234399)  \n[www.ndss-symposium.org](www.ndss-symposium.org), [https://www.usablesecurity.net/USEC/](https://www.usablesecurity.net/USEC/)  \nAs a result, social platforms have not only kept users engaged and claim a regular active user base, but popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp also have boasted a growth in their user bases. [15] [17] [11] .  \nThe Online Social Networks (OSNs) ecosystem is extremely powerful due to its ever-changing nature and fast ease of communication. It adapts to the demands of users and situations. For example, it can be used for knowledge and information dissipation overcoming modern-day censorship [31], spreading propaganda at the time of conflict [29], and providing assistance in day-to-day life in the face of natural calamity [32] . Link sharing is a particularly popular feature used by people online. Users share links to external content online, such as posting news links from external sources, sharing photos, videos, stories or disappearing pictures [16]  \n[21] . Yet, this variability of features also provides a breeding gro","cbCaine7Chq0PNqN","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaine7Chq0PNqN","pdf",170129,1,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Background on Social Media Link Sharing\n## Threats and Prior Work on Link-Based Attacks\n## Motivation for the Exploratory Study","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the study investigate about social media links?\",\"answer\":\"The study examines how top Android social media applications monitor or filter when users share malicious URLs or deceptive posts that hide dangerous links.\"},{\"question\":\"What was the goal of evaluating five Android social media applications?\",\"answer\":\"The goal was to determine whether the selected applications provide filtering or defenses against malicious URL sharing.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the study results suggest about current defenses?\",\"answer\":\"Most of the selected applications did not show effective defenses against the posting and spreading of malicious URLs, indicating a security vulnerability linked to link-based 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