While it might make a particularly long URL look tidier, cloud services that use URL shorteners with only six characters could leave themselves vulnerable to malware attacks using brute force.
Typically, these cloud services use URL shorteners as a means of being able to share access to shared folders across the web in the same way someone might want to use it to share a link on character-sensitive platforms, but there could be consequences for both the user and host of the cloud service.
According to Boing Boing, a new research paper posted online states that, with the typical shortened URL containing just six characters, a brute force attack instigated by a hacker could, by the process of elimination, locate the URL, which would allow the hacker access to all of the shared folders.
Read more at Silicon Republic
