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Phishing keeps making much noise in the realm of cybersecurity, and not in a good way. A majority of cyber attacks start with a phishing email, making the tactic responsible, at least partially, for close to 90% of data breaches.
IP spoofing is a cyberattack technique that entails using a device or a network to fool users into thinking the attacker is part of a legitimate entity. Often, cybercriminals use this method to access computers in a target network to obtain sensitive information, turn systems into zombies, or launch a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.
The more popular a brand is, the more customers buy its products. That same popularity makes it a lucrative target for infringers to sell counterfeits. As such, it has become a must for global brands to use brand protection software to make sure their reputation and consumers do not suffer.
Gone are the days when a single department in an organization shouldered the responsibility for a company's brand protection strategy. A research paper that discussed the future of online brand protection shows that inter-department involvement, starting with the board's approval and support, down to the implementation of the strategy by different departments, is required.
Typosquatting is also known as "URL hijacking," and for good reason. Just as hijackers unlawfully seize a vehicle, typosquatters take over a domain name and use it for malicious activities.
Reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) can be considered a severe threat to any honest-to-goodness small business or your average website owner.
One of the first go-to resources for law enforcers and cybercrime investigators is the WHOIS database. WHOIS domain search tools such as WHOIS Lookup provide rich information about a particular domain name or IP address.
When visitors fail to recognize that the site they visit is a fraudulent copy of that of a famous brand, they can expose themselves to cybercrime and other attacks. As part of these attacks, typosquatting is a common technique that hackers use to lure victims. They create websites that very closely resemble that of the brand they are trying to hijack so the victims would not have a clue that it is fake.
Over the past five years, the Internet has seen the mass migration of websites from HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to its extension, HTTP Secure (HTTPS). HTTPS is a communication protocol that encrypts the data exchanged between sites and user agents.
Sometimes, seeing several permutations of a famous company's domain names is not just a mere coincidence. Often, these are typosquatting attempts. They are not merely a nuisance, either, because clicking such a URL can have severe effects.