![]() ![]() ![]() Although it usually only makes headlines when it affects a major corporation or brand, the practice is still going strong today. You may still recall one of the earliest examples of typosquatting that occurred 15 years ago, when cybercriminals registered and operated it as a phishing site. Monitoring services are also available to help companies keep track of how their names are being used and watch for significant changes in site traffic. Once a domain has been trademarked, it is possible to file complaints against typosquatters. Leave sites that you visit every day open in the browser tabsįor companies, the most straightforward – although expensive – way to prevent typosquatting of their websites is to trademark their domains and purchase all related domain names that could be easily misspelled.Use voice recognition software or a smart assistant to go to popular websites.Use a search engine to look for the site and use the link on the results page.And since typosquatting is based on the fact that we are all prone to typos, avoid typing the URL directly into the browser yourself. Use your mouse to hover over links and carefully inspect the URLs before clicking. Don’t click on links or open email attachments unless you are 100% sure you can trust the source and the sender. How to protect yourself against typosquattingĪs an individual, the best way to protect yourself against landing on a typosquatting website is to exercise caution. And typosquatting can also be used to set up joke sites that make fun of the owner of the legitimate site, be it a company, a celebrity or a politician. It is quite common for hijacked websites to be used to install malware or adware on the devices of those who mistakenly visit the site. Or they can generate revenue through advertisements, pop-ups or affiliate links on the fake site. For example, they can drive traffic meant for the real site to the competitors instead, charging on a per-click basis. Although typosquatting is often used in such phishing scams, the perpetrators may have other tricks in mind. The cybercriminal can then phish their login credentials – and if the victim uses the same username and password across multiple sites, their other online accounts are at risk as well. For example, they can build a website that looks enough like the real thing that people are tricked into logging in. Once the scammer has registered the false domain, there are many ways it can be used to their advantage – at the expense of the unsuspecting user. Or to register the letters Because this practice has become so widespread, many companies have resorted to buying up these typo versions of their names themselves or blocking such domains through The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) service as typosquatting protection. Another variation is to spell the company name correctly but use a different top-level domain name, like instead of. Sometimes they will even purchase multiple URLs that are variants of the same name – like amzon, amazun, maazon, amozan, etc. Typosquatting starts as a legitimate business transaction, with the scammer buying and registering a domain name that is a misspelling of a popular website. Such scams also go by the names website hijacking, URL hijacking, domain mimicry or fake URLs. Then when a user incorrectly types the URL into their web browser, they will be taken to the false site. In typosquatting, a person registers a domain name that is a common misspelling of a legitimate company’s website, e.g. The word comes from “typo” – the small mistakes we all can make when typing – and “squatter” – a person who settles unlawfully on property without paying. Typosquatting is one way of tricking people to visiting these malicious websites. Typosquatting turns simple typos into a tool for cybercrime Typosquatting definitionĪs you may recall from our discussions of different types of phishing scams, cybercriminals sometimes try to lure their unsuspecting victims to fake websites where they trick them into entering login credentials or installing malware. ![]()
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