A SECURITY expert has highlighted a red flag to look out for when visiting websites.
Spotting it early could save you from a bank-draining attack.
Tech expert Stan Kaminsky recently revealed the red flag on the Kaspersky blog.
He wrote: “When following a link in an email, a social media post, or an ad, it pays to take a look at the URL of the site you land on.
“If it’s a hacked site, the discrepancy will be staring you in the face.”
You might notice the name of the real site you wanted in the URL with just one or two characters that are different.
Kaminksy refers to this as the “first sign of fakery”.
Scammers rely on you not double-checking the URL of a website.
It’s easy for cybercriminals to spoof sites and make fake versions look very convincing.
There are plenty of examples of criminals using this technique to create scam shopping and hotel booking sites.
Cybersecurity specialists at Trend Micro recently spotted what they describe as “deceptive copycat versions” of Airbnb or Booking.com.
They explained in a blog post: “Our malicious website technology has recently detected two fake websites impersonating Airbnb.com and Booking.com.
“To be clear, both Airbnb and Booking.com have no affiliation with these malicious websites — it is simply a case of cybercriminals creating copycat versions of the companies’ legitimate sites to try to scam people.”
Kaminsky notes that it’s more effort to double-check a URL when browsing on your smartphone.
That’s because a lot of apps open websites without making the URL visible.
It’s worth clicking on the address bar to make sure you’re safe before entering any personal or financial information on a site.
