Typosquatting : A hacking technique that might surprise you!

Typosquatting : A hacking technique that might suprise you!

Hacking has become the world's most common online game for hackers these days. Tricking users with their personal information and hard-earned money really turned out to be a piece of cake for them. Typosquatting is one on the list too, and we must be aware of the things going around the world in the name of the trust. But before stepping into the world of typosquatting we must get a simple linkage from its background or we can say its origin.

Typosquatting is a type of social engineering attack that targets the internet user who has mistakenly typed the wrong URL to their web browser while using search engines. In other words, we can say, it involves tricking users into visiting malicious websites with URLs, and it has the common misspelling of the legitimate website. Users can get tricked the sensitive detail by entering a fake website. Here the main game is the organization getting victimized and subsequently the website getting damaged.

As we mentioned social engineering so basically, Social Engineering is a technique that is intentionally performed by cyber criminals who indulge in the activities like exploiting human weaknesses. When it comes to Social Engineering generally involves various techniques all of which include the manipulation & bending of the norms of human psychology.

Threat actors depend particularly on Social Engineering to easily get benefitted from the sensitive information of victims. The game played by criminals is very smooth going and based on trust factors, they built trust so deep that the user or the victim will barely be able to suspect while giving out his/her personal information such as phone numbers, passwords, OTPs, etc.

How does Typosquatting come in function?

The very common mistake we generally make these days are using common data or personal information such as passwords on multiple sites, which subsequently makes our account at risk. Though typosquatting generates confusion or simply human error; which can be:

1.???Typos: This can be termed as the most common mistake we make which is while entering search information due to fast typing, sometimes we make errors. This is especially done by those who usually type very quickly, & hopefully rely on autocorrect and become the victim of the domain.

2.???Spelling errors: Sometimes, users are not aware of the correct spelling for words o be it any brand name at that time also, these can happen. This creates chaos over the internet & many businesses get misspelled variations with their site name and go to different home pages in search of something else.

3.???Alternative spelling: With the advanced vocabulary there are words with their lookalikes i.e. alternate spellings. Confusion opens a gateway for users to get easilyconfused.

4.???Hyphenated domains: Domain name is a must for you to remember while typing because even a small hyphen is capable enough to misguide you from your original objective. You always need to make sure that you need to understand the genuine site and install the typosquatting.

5.???The wrong domain ending: Domain endings are various depending upon the country for the different countries' domains like .com, .cn, and .co.UK, etc are used. If we talk about the association then, it is .com, .web,.org,.shop, etc. these all create a great scope for typosquatting. So this can be the real escape if you don't want to fall in the wrong hands, you must try registering with the top-level domain to prevent this.

Types of Typosquatting:

Disciplines including Typosquatting:

1. Imitators: This is a real-world scam where a website gets passed through a real thing and makes the site correctly & appropriately. If the site emulates a well-known bank then it will adopt the logo, page layout, and color scheme of that particular bank, basically the imitation. This site is mainly made to add up a portal for the phishing scam and gather all wrong login credentials with personal information.
2. Bait and switch: The main purpose of fake websites is to offer you something which has a correct interface with the proper URL. For some digital purchases are difficult to dispute the credit card with the credit card statement. As it is a fake purchase so technically they are not receiving any item, but they would have paid for it.
3. Related search result listings: Sometimes, the business owner believes that the actual meaning of the traffic is their customers searching, and they charge as the cost-per-click base.
4. Monetize traffic: Generally, fake website owners allow ads for publicity and pop-up commercials to come to generate revenue from web page visitors.
5. Surveys and giveaways: Just to promote their sites fake sites use customers' information and stolen data to gather the customer's feedback for their sites.
6. Affiliated links: Always remember a fake site will consistently relocate or redirects the traffic back to where the band gets through with an affiliated link to earn the additional commission from all the purchases via the brand's legitimate program.
7. Install malware: A website with ill notions will installs malware on the visitor's device.
8. Joke sites: These types of sites are intentionally prepared to take revenge or tease people with their ridiculous joking.

Precautions & Preventions

1. At the very initial point, the first thing you must stay aware of is to avoid clicking on unexpected emails, chat messages, text messages, and obscure websites. Keep in your senses while clicking any link you get from social media. If you get suspicious about it then it is better that you avoid clicking the link.
2. You must avoid clicking on random information or emails when you are not sure about the sender and source.
3. It is advised that you use antivirus software to protect and monitor your system against any malware. Multiple cybersecurity programs can help you to detect threats and provide extra protection from malware.
4. Along with conscious clinking on links. You also need to observe if there are any extra or missing words, wrong spelling, suffixes, etc.
5. If you want to stay on the safer side, you can bookmark your favorite site to visit those easily and safely and you will not need to search them again & again, which also subsequently decreases the chances of misspelling and wrong typing.
6. You also have a very helpful option of navigating your way where you can search them via the search engine easily.
7. You can also use additional voice recognition software to reach the popular URLs quickly & safely.
8. You can also prefer using the safe search tool instead of typing URLs directly.

Conclusion

Technology is the biggest bliss of all time, but alongside comes the curse attached to it. Therefore, it is better to be aware and in full conscious while using some sites or any type of internet-related works.