Fake Emails, Pretexting Phishing, Spoofed URLs – It’s All Typosquatting

You may have never heard of Typosquatting. But chances are, you might have already been a victim of a Typosquatting attack. Typosquatting is known by many names, including Spoofing, Pretexting Phishing, URL hijacking, fake URLs, sting sites, fake email and many others. In essence, Typosquatting is a cyberattack where cybercriminals impersonate real domains to spread malware and commit fraud. The hackers register domains with names that look almost like the real ones they are mimicking. They mimic trusted, legitimate domains to increase their chances of fooling you. Would you notice if you received a news item from a website that looks just like the home page of cnn.com, except this time, it actually reads cnm.com? Maybe you’d catch it. But what if you didn’t?

The FBI https://www.fbi.gov/ scams-and-safety/ common-scams-and-crimes/ spoofing-and-phishing has stated, “Criminals count on being able to manipulate you into believing that these spoofed communications are real, which can lead you to download malicious software, send money or disclose personal, financial or other sensitive information.” The FBI has also reported a 400% increase in small business cybercrime reports since the start of the pandemic and the number of cybercrimes continues to increase.

Going forward, you must slow down the “clicking” process and always ask yourself, “Is this a real website?”

Here are Some of the Techniques Cyber Criminals use for Typosquatting:

• Minor Changes to a Top-level Domain – If the actual URL is www.abcd.co.us, the hacker might drop the “.co” thereby changing it to www.abcd.us. That slight change is enough for the fake URL to be successful. Remember, computers are literal. One missing or incorrect character is enough to change the URL to a different address where the perpetrator of the hack wants you to go.
• A Simple Misspelling of the Target Domain – Some misspellings are hard to catch, as mentioned above. Note how easy it would be to miss dropping the second “s” in the word “Misspelling” in this section's title – Misspelling vs. Mispelling. You, missing the incorrect spelling, is all it would take for the attack to be successful.
• Adding or Combining Words – It would be easy to be fooled, if by using the same hypothetical URL, a cyberattack changed the actual URL, www.abc.com, to www.abc-resources.com,
• Adding Extra Periods to an URL – Even a sharp eye might easily miss an extra period. Following the same URL example, in www.ab.c.com, the additional period could easily go unnoticed. You miss the change, and the attack will be successful.
• Using Similar-Looking Characters – To computers, there is no such thing as “similar.” Either the spelling of the URL is correct, or it’s not. Using an uppercase Q instead of an O is easy to miss. There are many examples of subtle URL changes to which uninformed or careless users could fall victim.

To increase their chances of a successful cyberattack, cybercriminals will usually register several different versions of the fake domains. The more different deceptive fake URLs they create, the greater their chance of success.

More companies than ever are required by law to protect the personal and financial data they collect from clients. If their employees fall victim to a typosquatting attack, their clients are also in jeopardy. For medical and legal practices, safe and secure data is crucial to their reputations. Data breaches of any kind with malicious software or typosquatting attacks can put companies out of business and expose them to ongoing legal challenges.

Malware protection requires a layered and all-encompassing approach to achieve effective and complete coverage. To protect your hard-earned business data, you must be proactive in building the perfect defenses for your business data systems, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Protection for data breaches is too important and has become much too complex for you to do on your own. A professional cyber security expert can help you make the right choices for protecting against and recovering from cybercrimes. DIGIGUARD Cyber Security specializes in cyber threat protection, including many layers of security and defense solutions for small and midsized companies.

Get a DIGIGUARD Vulnerability Assessment

As your business grows, expands its network and adds more devices such as smart controls, wireless access and remote access, your network vulnerability grows, too. DIGIGUARD specializes in proactive cyber security and network security and has a wide array of solutions for small and midsized businesses to defend against cyberattacks and other network data breaches. They are cyber security experts who can ensure your confidential business and financial data has the best protection possible. Furthermore, they can establish security protocols for your employees so they do not inadvertently open your company to a cyberattack.

In addition to helping you defend against or recover from cybercrimes, DIGIGUARD can provide solutions that offer early detection of potential cyber threats before they happen. DIGIGUARD can assess your cyber vulnerability and work with you to ensure you have the best network and data protection solutions for your business.

Contact DIGIGUARD CYBER SECURITY at 833-33-CYBER (833-332-9237) www.DIGIGUARDsecurity.com to discuss the prevention of cyberattacks and other cyber defense protocols to protect your hard-earned business data and stay current as new and more powerful protections are developed.