How do hackers/scammers know that I clicked a link? Why is my personal info in the url redirect link? Is this info then being stored in a database and the hacker/scammer knows that because this specific link was clicked it must have been me?
I received a dodgy email with a link and was curious. So I activated my VPN and checked the link first on VirusTotal and dr web. I found out that the link redirected several times to different websites.
I have changed the link numbers and letters but the domain is how I received it as you see below.
The original link sent to me looked like:
http://gallery.divinerosestore.com/SOME_LETTERS_AND_NUMBERS
What freaked me out was that the second redirect url contained my email address in the url link. It was in a weird format separated by commas (,) the link below is not real but is in a format as such:
hdating.us/?s=77auyfdgaukgfdsukg&ed=icl&i=admin77,83907,MY_EMAIL_ADDRESS@service.com,&ts=489234987459
How I imagine this works is that this information of my email address is being passed on to user "admin77" stored in his database/textfile whatever and he knows that I have clicked his link and he now knows I am susceptible to clicking links and a future target?
I would like to inform myself more about cybersecurity and find out more about the details.