New Delhi: Popular chat platform Discord has announced that it will switch to temporary file links for all users by the end of the year to fight malware. Links to those files will begin refreshing every 24 hours by the end of this year to prevent malware delivery. The company told BleepingComputer that it is evolving its approach to “attaching content delivery network (CDN) URLs to create a more secure experience for users.”
“Specifically, this will help our security team restrict access to flagged content, and generally reduce the amount of malware distributed using our CDN,” the company said. There will be no impact to Discord users sharing content within the Discord client.
“Any links within the client will automatically refresh. If users are using Discord to host files, we would recommend they find a more suitable service,” Discord said.
The company said it would share more information with developers “in the coming weeks,” who “may see minimal impact.”
According to the report, CDN URLs will come with three new parameters that will add an expiration timestamp and unique signature that will remain valid until the link expires. Discord’s permanent file hosting capabilities have been abused in the past to distribute malware and exfiltrate data.
Cybersecurity company Trelix recently reported that it found “approximately 10,000” malware samples distributed online that were stored on Discord’s content delivery network (CDN).
