• Source: Typosquatting

Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, a sting site, a cousin domain, or a fake URL, is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser. A user accidentally entering an incorrect website address may be led to any URL, including an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.
The typosquatter's URL will usually be similar to the victim's site address; the typosquatting site could be in the form of:

A misspelling, or foreign language spelling, of the intended site
A misspelling based on a typographical error
A plural of a singular domain name
A different top-level domain (e.g., .com instead of .org)
An abuse of the Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) (.cm, .co, or .om instead of .com)
Similar abuses:

Combosquatting – no misspelling, but appending an arbitrary word that appears legitimate, but that anyone could register.
Doppelganger domain – omitting a period or inserting an extra period
Appending terms such as sucks or -suckes to a domain name
Once on the typosquatter's site, the user may also be tricked into thinking that they are actually on the real site through the use of copied or similar logos, website layouts, or content. Spam emails sometimes make use of typosquatting URLs to trick users into visiting malicious sites that look like a given bank's site, for instance.




Motivation


There are several different reasons for typosquatters buying a typo domain:

To try to sell the typo domain back to the brand owner
To monetize the domain through advertising revenues from direct navigation misspellings of the intended domain
To redirect the typo-traffic to a competitor
To redirect the typo-traffic back to the brand itself, but through an affiliate link, thus earning commissions from the brand owner's affiliate program
As a phishing scheme to mimic the brand's site, while intercepting passwords which the visitor enters unsuspectingly
To install drive-by malware or revenue generating adware onto the visitors' devices
To harvest misaddressed e-mail messages mistakenly sent to the typo domain
To express an opinion that is different from the intended website's opinion
By legitimate site owners, to block malevolent use of the typo domain by others
To annoy users of the intended site




Examples


Many companies, including Verizon, Lufthansa, and Lego, have gained reputations for aggressively chasing down typosquatted names. Lego, for example, has spent roughly US$500,000 on taking 309 cases through UDRP proceedings.
Celebrities have also pursued their domain names. Prominent examples include basketball player Dirk Nowitzki's UDRP of DirkSwish.com and actress Eva Longoria's UDRP of EvaLongoria.org.
Goggle, a typosquatted version of Google, was the subject of a 2006 web safety promotion by McAfee, a computer security company, which depicted the significant amounts of malware installed through drive-by downloads upon accessing the site at the time. Goggle installed SpySheriff. Later, the URL was redirected to google.com; a 2018 check revealed it to redirect users to adware pages, and a 2020 attempt to access the site through a private DNS resolver hosted by AdGuard resulted in the page being identified as malware and blocked for the user's security. By mid-2022, it had been turned into a political blog.
Another example of corporate typosquatting is yuube.com, targeting YouTube users by programming that URL to redirect to a malicious website or page that asks users to add a malware "security check extension". Similarly, www.airfrance.com has been typosquatted by www.arifrance.com, diverting users to a website peddling discount travel (although it now redirects to a warning from Air France about malware). Other examples are equifacks.com (Equifax.com), experianne.com (Experian.com), and tramsonion.com (TransUnion.com); these three typosquatted sites were registered by comedian John Oliver for his show Last Week Tonight. Over 550 typosquats related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election were detected in 2019.
The Magniber ransomware is being distributed in a typosquatting method that exploits typos made when entering domains, targeting mainly Chrome and Edge users.




In United States law


In the United States, the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) contains a clause (Section 3(a), amending 15 USC 1117 to include sub-section (d)(2)(B)(ii)) aimed at combatting typosquatting.
On April 17, 2006, evangelist Jerry Falwell failed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision allowing Christopher Lamparello to use www.fallwell.com. Relying on a plausible misspelling of Falwell's name, Lamparello's gripe site presents misdirected visitors with scriptural references that are intended to counter the fundamentalist preacher's scathing rebukes against homosexuality. In Lamparello v. Falwell, the high court let stand a 2005 Fourth Circuit opinion that "the use of a mark in a domain name for a gripe site criticizing the markholder does not constitute cybersquatting."




WIPO resolution procedure


Under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP), trademark holders can file a case at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) against typosquatters (as with cybersquatters in general). The complainant has to show that the registered domain name is identical or confusingly similar to their trademark, that the registrant has no legitimate interest in the domain name, and that the domain name is being used in bad faith.




See also


Domain Name System – System to identify resources on a network (DNS)
Domain name spoofing – Phishing attacks that depend on falsifying or misrepresenting an internet domain name
Doppelganger domain – Form of domain name hijack
IDN homograph attack – Visually similar letters in domain names
Misdialed call § Toll-free numbers – Similar attacks on vanity phonewords
Mousetrapping – Digital marketing tool
Phishing – Form of social engineering
URL shortening – Web technique




References






External links


Giles, Jim (February 17, 2010). "Typos may earn Google $500m a year". New Scientist. Retrieved July 19, 2023. (reporting research by Ben Edelman and Tyler Moore: Measuring Typosquatting Perpetrators and Funders)
Corwin, Philip (September 13, 2007). "The Internet Commerce Association Code of Conduct". InternetCommerce.org. Internet Commerce Association. Archived from the original on April 7, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2007.

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Penumpangan saltik
• .om
• .ne
• .cm
• Typosquatting
• List of fake news websites
• .om
• Typographical error
• URL
• .bz
• Fake news websites in the United States
• Login spoofing
• IDN homograph attack
• Affiliate marketing