Hackers are taking advantage of an old CMS editing tool for websites that have not been updated in a long time. They are using it to break into educational and government websites all over the world. Their goal is to mess with search results by sending people to dangerous websites or scams.
Open redirect is like leaving the front door of your website wide open for hackers.
They can sneak in, pretend to be you, and lead unsuspecting visitors straight into their trap. Imagine someone sending a fake email pretending to be from your company. The email has a link that looks legit because it has your domain name. But when people click on it, instead of going to your website, they end up on the hacker’s site.
This sneaky trick works because the website changes the link without you realizing it. Sometimes, it is done by the website itself using fancy code. Other times, it is as simple as sending a secret message to the visitor’s browser. Either way, it is bad news for your online reputation.
Imagine a scenario where there’s a link on a website like this: “https://www.example.com/?redirect=”. This link is supposed to take visitors to a specific webpage. But here is the catch: anyone can change that link to lead to whatever website they want. It is like having a signpost that can be tampered with to send people wherever someone pleases. That is what we call an open redirect.