December 15, 2011
A survey of several high profile domain names has revealed the incidence of those names having typosquat companions to be very high.
Carried out by security company Sophos, the company applied every possible one-character typo to the domain names of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and studied what was returned.
Sophos found 61% of Microsoft domain name variations returned typosquat pages, Twitter 74%, Facebook 81%, Google 83% and Apple at 86%.
Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting - it's where a party registers domain names that are misspellings of a brand and rely on Internet users who enter an incorrectly spelled domain name into their browsers to stumble upon their site - a fairly common occurrence.
A typosquat domain will often display advertising, for which the typosquatter is paid when someone clicks on an ad. Typosquat domains are also sometimes used by activists or those with an axe to grind in relation to the company in question, or to infect wayward visitors with malware.
On a positive note, Sophos found only 0.07% of typosquat domains were serving malware. However, 2.7% of the URLs were what Sophos described as related to cybercrime - associated with hacking, phishing, online fraud or spamming. 2.4% were adult or dating sites.
Sophos said many were also "parked" pages, offering to sell the name while also displaying ads.
In regard to the location of the servers on which the typosquat domain names were hosted, the USA was the most common location by a wide margin, followed by Germany, China and the UK respectively.
The study also highlighted the prevalence of "bait and switch" typosquats - where a site will emulate the brand, but redirect the user to competing - and at times, illegal products.
The full details of the Sophos survey can be viewed on the company's blog, Naked Security.
Have a web site or blog? Get our free domain news widget.
How to register a name: Enter your choice in the search tool and click 'GO'. If after the check the domain names search results show your choice is available, you will then have the option to proceed to purchase registration; which is a very quick and easy process - start a search and find your ideal website address now.
AUSTRALIAN OWNED AND OPERATED SINCE 1996
1300 863 436