A MISSPELLING in a URL could lead you to a malicious site that will try to steal your personal information or money.
The scam is called a typosquat attack and is meant to catch people who may accidentally add an extra letter and symbol when searching for a website.
The typosquat attack was brought to light by computer security company McAfee on how typosquatting scams work.
The one-off letter could lead to a website that looks very similar to the official website.
The scammers hope that you are not paying attention and put your personal or bank information into their scam websites and more.
“We’ve seen typosquatting sites evolve into clever copycats of legitimate sites. Some look like real banking and e-commerce sites that they steal traffic from, complete with stolen logos and familiar login screens,” McAfee said.
“With this, scammers hope to trick you into entering your passwords and other sensitive information.”
Typosqut attacks have increased by 10 percent from 2021 to 2022 and have been reported to copy sites like Microsoft addresses, TikTok, Snapchat, PayPal, and more, according to researchers, per McAfee.
QUICK TRICK TO STOP
On the bright side, there is a way to stop the attack in its tracks, and it’s quite self-explanatory.
Even though mistakes happen, it is important to be wary of how you are spelling a URL when typing it into a search engine.
To protect yourself from scam websites, always double-check the URL before pressing go to stop the scam in its tracks.
You can also type in the website into Google to have better chances of finding the official website versus just typing it in.
OTHER SECURITY TIPS
First, passwords can be stolen by bad intended third-party extensions when you are using Google Chrome, new research has found.
The issue is that the third-party extensions can get a hold of passwords due to the high degree of access to both the web browser and the pages the browser displays.
To avoid this security vulnerability, only use trustworthy third-party extensions or do not use them at all.
Second, Google users are being urged to type a certain phrase into the search engine to increase their search security. Check it out – here.
