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Hackers love the domain contingency game

In a previous post, we reviewed the concept of domain and URL contingencies to recapture lost traffic and avoid unnecessary errors... 

And everyone by now has heard of phishing sites, usually linked to from spam e-mails, which appear to be legitimate sites for banks, PayPal, etc, but are actually hacker sites trying to steal personal and financial data (always mouse over those links – they always display a target URL very different from the displayed URL in the e-mail).

Well, here are reports of one company/hacker enclave that is taking this approach at the domain level.  They hope that you mistype a security software company’s URL -- so that you hit their similar contingency domain -- and then they have you.  Read the article at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5873001.html

The author calls them “typo-squatters”, but “jerks” will suffice.

Best,
Port80

posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 2:45 PM

Feedback

# re: Hackers love the domain contingency game

Here is an interesting follow-up on these types of domains:

http://domainrookie.com/hilarious-domain-name-mispronouncings
10/31/2005 1:48 PM | Chris @ Port80

# Microsoft Hunts Typosquatters with New URL Tracer Tool

4/11/2006 12:18 PM | [200 OK]: A Port80 Software Blog

# Microsoft Hunts Typosquatters with New URL Tracer Tool

8/16/2006 3:00 PM | [200 OK]: A Port80 Software Blog

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