Now You Know: Typosquatting

Published On April 8, 2014 | By Tom Huskerson | Now You Know

Typosquatting is when a cybercriminal creates a website with a name or address similar to a popular and honest website. For example you’re looking for www.macys.com. But you may be a bad speller or simply mis-type the address. And you land on something like www.maceys.com or www.nacys.com. A mistake any of us could make. The cybercriminal is waiting for you when you arrive and you could end up looking at a lot of spam advertisements or getting hit with a drive-by download of some malware.  (See drive-by download in Terminology) This situation happens everyday and is a real problem for both legitimate websites and innocent consumers.

Some websites are complete impostors. They look every bit like the real website but they aren’t. You think you’re on the Bank of America website when in actually you’re in a cybercriminal’s trap at www.bancofamerica.ru.   These sites may ask you to log in or verify with a credit card number. This is called as phishing. Once you enter that information you could be in real trouble.

Pay close attention when typing in URL’s. That’s a web address. Look carefully at it before you hit the enter button. Check it again after it appears on your screen. Be careful.

Now you know.

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About The Author

Tom Huskerson Bio Born in Richmond Virginia Tom Huskerson is a military veteran who settled in California after his discharge. Tom attended Santa Barbara City College where he began his writing career as a campus reporter. He worked as an intern news reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press writing feature stories before moving on to San Francisco. At San Francisco State University Tom studied broadcast communications and began to focus on the Internet. He completed his graduate thesis on Internet advertising. Tom was the first student to ever focus on the Internet as a graduate student at San Francisco State University. After graduation he went to work for Zona Research in California’s Silicone Valley. As a research associate Tom supported senior analyst writing on the latest developments in the Internet industry. During the dot com boom Tom worked for several web businesses as a market researcher and analyst. As a writer and researcher Tom has authored various technical works including a training program for Charles Schwab security. Other projects included professional presentations on workplace violence and hiring security contractors. Tom has also written both fiction and non-fiction works and blogging for a travel website. He has published two books of short stories and completed two novels. Tom is the owner of Scribe of Life Literature and EbonyCandle.com. Tom is not the chief editor for the OnTechStreet. com. A news and information blog that focuses on tech news for African-Americans. The blog is the result of his desire to inform the African American community of the dangers and benefits of the cyber age. In his blog Tom reports on information security, new and analysis, scams and hoaxes, legal happenings and various topics that arise from the age of information. Tom believes that technology is a necessary tool for black people and they should know what is happening. Tom writes believing that techno speak is for the professional and that valuable information can be communicated using plain language. As a result he has embraced the motto, Less Tech, More Knowledge.

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