Typosquatting – How to avoid an easy mistake

These misspelt websites are spreading nasty malware – here’s how to stay safe

Your browser’s address bar is unable to spell check any mistakes you may have made when searching for a new website. Many look-alike domains exist for this exact reason and are often used to lure you into using the website, opening your device up to malware or phishing attacks.

This is commonly referred to as typosquatting and is an older tactic used by cybercriminals where they register domains that are similar to legitimate ones with the hopes that a potential victim will fall for it. By misspelling a web address, you could unknowingly end up on a fake website instead.

A new typosquatting campaign, as reported on by BleepingComputer, has been discovered in the wild which uses 200 fake domains, impersonating 27 popular brands to trick users into downloading Android and Windows malware.

At first glance, many of these typosquatting websites seem to look quite convincing and copy the entire look and feel of the legitimate website so that you are none the wiser. The domains in the aforementioned campaign are close to the sites that they are impersonating with only a single letter in the wrong place or with an extra letter added somewhere. If you aren’t paying full attention, it can be an easy mistake to make but a potentially costly one.

First discovered by the cybersecurity company Cyble, the new typosquatting campaign is being used by criminals to impersonate app stores and even social media sites.

Some of these fake domain names include Google Play Store, APKCombo and APKPure. Victims unintentionally enter these copied versions, believing them to be the real deal but upon download, their devices become infected with the ERMAC banking trojan that can steal money from your online banking accounts.

Cyber criminals have also set up fake sites impersonating the likes of Snapchat, TikTok, PayPal, Google Wallet and other popular services.

How to stay safe from typosquatting domains

Although many of the best browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge include typosquatting protection, this feature doesn’t always prevent users from navigating to fake websites.

To avoid accidentally navigating to a fake website with a misspelt address, you should use a search engine to find the site you want to visit rather than manually typing it out in the address bar. You may also want to consider not clicking on any of the ads shown in the search results or on a webpage as cybercriminals often use these for malicious intent too.

To further protect your data and devices, get in touch today to see how we can help! We offer a wide range of cyber security solutions, helping to protect you against threats.