Lately a lot of SL groups have been getting hit by spammers posting phishing links that look like real Marketplace stores. Here’s an example of the kind of thing going around: [12:16:37] Rẙaḽīể (ryalie): New store! Outfit + Shape, Everything is free, limited quantity https://marketplacsecondlife-style-body-mesh-catwa-185089.store It’s clearly meant to trick people, and residents are falling for it because it looks close-ish to a legit SL URL. People are losing their Lindens because their accounts become compromised, thinking they’re logging into a trusted site. The scammers then use those compromised accounts to spam other groups (sometimes even pay-to-join ones), which just keeps the cycle going and leads to more stolen Lindens and MORE hacked accounts. My suggestion is to remove clickable URLs in group chat and IMs unless they’re from trusted sites. Maybe have a whitelist for known, safe domains like: marketplace.secondlife.com secondlife.com community.secondlife.com flickr.com primfeed.com gyazo.com Or other KNOWN and trusted sites. Everything else could just show up as plain text or with a warning before opening. Other possible options could include: color-coding links (safe ones in green, unverified ones in grey or red), adding a short delay before opening non-trusted URLs (“This link will open in 5 seconds”), or even giving users a setting in Preferences to allow clickable links from trusted domains only. This would stop a lot of the spam and protect people from phishing. It would also cut down the workload for in-world group moderators (who constantly have to boot spammers) and reduce support tickets from compromised accounts; meaning less work for your support team, cost savings for you, and a safer experience for everyone. Thank you!
