ISO Position Paper

Position Title: URL Shortening

Position Audience: Princeton University Community

Contact: Information Security Office: [email protected]

Position Release Date: August 11, 2017

Last Update: December 1, 2022

Problem Statement

With the prevalence of phishing attacks, the community needs to view the entire URL in communications so that they can assess the risk of a website prior to clicking the link. URL shortening services and QR (quick response) code generators obscure the URL target making it impossible for a user to determine the website to which browsers are being directed.

ISO Position

Unless there is a character limit, full URLs should be utilized in all official University communications.