Is this malicious?

[RWint]

I frequently get text messages claiming to be supporting a candidate for congress.  I suspect is may be something else.  Can you check out this link?

https://bit.ly/3fjWD2A

Thanks

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by AdvancedSetup
removed live hyperlinks

[alvarnell]

I don't ever click on a shortened link such as bit.ly from someone I don't know. Just delete it and ask your correspondents not to use such services. Way too often they are just spam ads and could be worse.

[AdvancedSetup]

exithelpcomputer.xyz

Is one of the expansions.

As @alvarnell said. One should never click on shortened links like that unless you know 100% where it came from and that you trust it. There are sites that will also expand shortened URLs for you, but be careful with some of them too

We block the site with Browser Guard

 

[RWint]

I would never click on it.  I just wanted to know if it is malicious.  I reported it to the state but I never heard anything.  It looks mostly clean on virustotal (one suspicious hit),  If you are blocking it I would assume you see something bad there? 

[alvarnell]

6 minutes ago, RWint said:

If you are blocking it I would assume you see something bad there? 

Not necessarily. Malwarebytes takes reports from a variety of sources, so the one hit on virustotal could easily be the one that caused it to be blacklisted. There is no way for the staff to check each and every report from other sources to verify maliciousness or not. They prefer to err on the side of caution for your protection. Generally, only reports from the site owner and from users who feel blockage may be a false positive or interfer with their computing are checked.

The fact that Browser Guard is blocking it should be all you need to know.

Edited July 10, 2020 by alvarnell

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, RWint said:

I frequently get text messages claiming to be supporting a candidate for congress. 

I hate those. They can do that legally. I  register the number as spam on my android phone.

 

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, RWint said:

I frequently get text messages claiming to be supporting a candidate for congress.

 I assume these are texts on the phone.

[RWint]

They are on the phone and every time from a different number.  They always start out with "Hi Patricia" (nobody here by that name) and then ask for support.  I used to receive similar calls asking for Patricia and then asking for money for the police.  Blocking the number does no good. 

[gonzo]

Simple answer to that one. Do not answer the phone if it does not have a number/Caller ID that you recognize. If they don't leave a message, it must not have been important anyway. My voicemail greeting even says my time has been wasted by too many people, so leave a message or hang up now.  Numbers are often spoofed, so blocking is useless. Do not call registries are an answer provided by people who don't care in the first place. Dishonest people do not follow the rules, only *some* honest people. They will call you anyway, guaranteed.