This Holiday Season, Beware of Phantom Websites

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A “fly by night” business is one that quickly appears and disappears, without concern for the quality of their product or service, or for legal regulations. These untrustworthy businesses often operate fraudulently. On the Internet, a fly by night business is called a “phantom website.”

Phantom websites exist to collect personal and credit card information. They can appear online any time of the year, but the holidays are prime time. They imitate the look and feel of a legitimate website, and many simply copy the web code from well-known online retailers, right down to the names and logos. They may also purchase domain names that resemble those of legitimate retailers, “typosquatting” to take advantage of mistyped searches.

Criminals may direct you to phantom websites using advertisements, even on major search engines like Yahoo and Google. These links or clickable graphics can either send you to a phantom site, or they may even directly infect your computer with malware.

Hackers and scammers also rely on black hat SEO to get their phantom websites ranked on the first or second page of search results, using the same search engine optimization techniques as legitimate vendors.

However, these scammers also game the system using techniques like “link farms,” “keyword stuffing,” and “article spinning,” which are frowned upon by search engines. Using these techniques to lure visitors will get them banned within a month or two, but that’s plenty of time to establish an online presence and scam plenty of victims.

And of course, phishing is in season all year long. Scammers send emails offering deals too good to be true, in order to draw visitors to their phantom sites. They’ll often take advantage of major holidays and significant world events to create an enticing offer. These emails are designed to trick recipients into entering account credentials, which allows the scammers to take over existing accounts or open new ones.

Protect yourself from phantom websites by only doing business with legitimate online retailers you know, like, and trust. Go directly to their websites, rather than relying on search engines, which may lead you astray. But do use search engines to check out a company’s name and look for ratings sites where customers have posted their experiences with a particular company. If you can’t find anything aside from the company’s own website, be suspicious.

And, never click on links in unsolicited emails. Just hit delete.

Use SiteAdvisor or a similar service to scan for infected links.

And invest in identity theft protection, because when all else fails, it’s nice to have a service watching your back. McAfee Identity Protection includes proactive identity surveillance to monitor subscribers’ credit and personal information, as well as access to live fraud resolution agents who can help subscribers work through the process of resolving identity theft issues. For additional tips, please visit CounterIdentityTheft.com.

Robert Siciliano is a McAfee consultant and identity theft expert. See him discuss how a person becomes an identity theft victim on CounterIdentityTheft.com. (Disclosures)

Typosquatting for Fun and Profit

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Typosquatting, which is also known as URL hijacking, is a form of cybersquatting that targets Internet users who accidentally type a website address into their web browser incorrectly. When users make a typographical error while entering the website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter or criminal hacker.

Typosquatters often create spoofed sites that may have the look and feel of the intended site. Operations like these may actually sell products and services that are in direct competition with the site you wanted to go to or they may be a front to steal your credentials including credit cards or social security numbers. Examples from Veralab might be “leson vs. lesson” or extra double characters such as “yahhoo vs. yahoo” or wrong character sequencies such as “IMB vs. IBM”, or a wrong key pressed such as “fesex vs. fedex.”

In some cases the typosquatters employ phishing to get you to visit the site. Phishing of course is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Typosquatting and phishing go hand in hand.

SC Magazine reports “in most cybersquatting cases, the web address can be similar in appearance to the actual corporate site, but will instead contain pay-per-click advertisements, according to a 2007 McAfee report, which studied 1.9 million typographical variations of 2,771 of the most trafficked websites.”

Last year Scammers created a website imitating Twitter.com called tvvitter that’s t-v-v-itter, cute huh? They sent phishing emails to millions of users, many of whom clicked on the link contained within the emails, which sends them to the phishing site, where they enter their user names and passwords in order to log in.

When doing a search online look carefully at any links you click.

When typing in a browser, before hitting “enter” look at the address bar to confirm you spelled it properly.

Do business with e-tailers you are familiar with and carefully spell their domain.

Set up your favorites menu with your most visited sites.

So heads up, be careful out there and don’t get hooked.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing burglar proofing your home on Fox Boston. Disclosures.

Cybersquatting Leads to Identity Theft

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Ever click on a link in an email or while browsing online, and something just wasn’t right? The domain name in the address bar was off by a letter or two? Or a word was misspelled? Maybe there was a number tossed in for good measure? This is either cybersquatting or typosquatting, and it’s a problem.

Cybersquatting is the act of procuring someone else’s trademarked brand name online, either as a dot com or any other U.S.-based extension. Cybersquatters squat for many reasons, including for fun, because they are hoping to resell the domain, they are using the domain to advertise competitors’ wares, stalking, harassment or outright fraud. Social media identity theft, or grabbing someone else’s given name on social networks, is another form of cybersquatting or, when it occurs on Twitter, Twitter squatting.

In particularly malicious cases of cybersquatting, identity thieves will use a domain similar to that of a bank in order to create a spoofed website for phishing. If the domain isn’t available, typosquatting is the next best option. After Annualcreditreport.com launched, more than 200 similar domains were quickly snapped up.

This is just one more reason to actively protect yourself from identity theft.

This week, Computerworld discussed the havoc that cybersquatting can have on a brand’s reputation. Sometimes, criminals copy a brand’s entire website in order to collect usernames and passwords from unwitting visitors. Then, the hackers will test those names and passwords on other websites. Cybersquatting increased by 18% last year, with a documented 440,584 cybersquatting sites in the fourth quarter alone, according to MarkMonitor’s annual Brandjacking Index report.

Intellectual property owners can sue cybersquatters under the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, but it’s expensive and damages are limited to $100,000. They can try to shut down sites containing copyrighted content under provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and in some cases, they might be able to pursue violators for trademark abuse under provisions of the Lanham (Trademark) Act.

I’ve written before about the time I was accused of cybersquatting. I wasn’t, I swear! It was the early 90’s, and I had an IBM PS1 Consultant 3.1 Microsoft operating system and a rockin’ 150 MB hard drive. I bought myself some domains. I sold some, others I regrettably gave up. And there was one that will haunt me ’till the day I die.

I owned LEDZEPPELIN.com for about 5-6 years. Led Zeppelin was and is my band, and as a fan, I bought the domain as a keepsake. I would get emails from people all over the world, saying things like, “I am Paulo from Brazil, I love the Led Zep!”

Then, when Clinton passed a law later making cybersquatting illegal, I knew it was only a matter of time. I had it for five years before anyone from the band’s team of lawyers approached me about it. And when they did, I didn’t know how to handle it. And my lawyer at the time, even less so. Ultimately, I gave it up without a fight, but I’m sure the band’s lawyers billed them for the one inch thick book of a lawsuit I was served with. Sorry, dudes. My bad.

In this case, the lawyers saw an opportunity to build a case against me, a fan who would have been happy with a stupid guitar pick from Jimmy. Instead I sat in silence for a year while they built a huge case as to why they should own the domain. When served, I freaked out and called them, yelling that they could take it, that I never wanted that.

One of few regrets. But I have a nice one inch thick souvenir all about me and the band and why I’m an idiot.

Anyway, with cybersquatting on the rise, it makes sense to claim your name, your brand name, and your kids’ names on social networking sites and domain names as soon as possible. Just in case you get famous, you don’t want to have to fight a twit like me.

Protect your identity too.

  1. Get a credit freeze. Go to ConsumersUnion.org and follow the steps for your particular state. This is an absolutely necessary tool to secure your credit. In most cases, it prevents new accounts from being opened in your name. This makes your Social Security number useless to a potential identity thief.
  2. Invest in Intelius identity theft protection and prevention. Not all forms of identity theft protection can be prevented, but identity theft protection services can dramatically reduce your risk.

Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker discussing stolen domain names on Fox News

Typosquatting on Twitter and other social networks

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Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert

Typosquatting, which is also known as URL hijacking, is a form of cybersquatting that targets Internet users who accidentally type a website address into their web browser incorrectly. When users make a typographical error while entering the website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter. This can lead to financial or social media identity theft. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.tvviter

Scammers recently created a website imitating Twitter.com, and have been sending phishing emails to millions of users, many of whom click on the link contained within the emails, which sends them to the phishing site, where they enter their user names and passwords in order to log in.

The site is Tvviter.com, spelled with two V’s instead of a W. This is a form of “TypoPhishing”. I doubt anyone is going to inadvertently typo two V’s, but it’s certainly a creative ruse by the criminal hackers. This website is currently live. Assuming that your browser is up to date, it should alert you to the fact that Tvviter.com is a suspected phishing site.  Tweet.ro is another phishing website, which my up to date browser did not warn me about. Notice that neither web address is hyperlinked here. I would not suggest playing around on these sites. At any time, the creators can easily introduce malware to these sites, and then onto your outdated operating system or browser in the form of a “drive by” hack, which ultimately leads us back to identity theft and fraud.

tvviter1If you decide to play in the devil’s den, you are bound to get burnt.

Forward this blog post to your contacts. Let people know, so that they won’t be fooled. This scam may stick if the site isn’t taken down by the time this warning is read. Don’t get hooked. And protect yourself with Internet security software and identity theft protection.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses phishing.