What Is a Deceptive Domain?

A deceptive domain is a domain name that is registered to deceive or confuse. They are often used in fraud and phishing attacks.

Deceptive domains typically fall into 2 main groups:

  1. Typo-squatting is when a domain name is registered with a missing letter, added letter or where one of the letters has been replaced. For example, goog1e.com is registered as a deceptive domain against google.com. (The l is replaced with a 1, which in some fonts looks almost identical).
  2. Concept-squatting is when a brand name and what they do are combined to create a new domain name. For example, BMW makes cars, and their UK website is bmw.co.uk. However, a domain like bmwcars.co.uk can be registered to create confusion with the brand.

In the past, it was possible to register all of the domains similar to your company brand. However now as there are over 1,500 .com, .net, .co.uk etc... variations, this is no longer practical.

At Fresh Security, we search for typo-squatting and concept-squatting domains to confirm which are registered and monitor to ensure no fraud occurs.

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