Watch What You Type Into Your Browser!
Wherever we are, we’re in a hurry. It doesn’t matter where we are either, at home, work, vacation—or surfing the internet. But, one small typo can land you into BIG trouble.
In our rush to get to a favorite website, many of us don’t really watch what we’re typing into the browser. One letter off and you can be taken to a scam website that cyber-criminals have created to look exactly like the intended site, but it’s all a scam and many times the victim doesn’t know it until their security has been breached.
Cyber-criminals are smart and look for common misspellings of legitimate websites to create their look-a-likes to ensnare you. This is called typosquatting (the practice of registering misspellings of popular domains). So, typing in costcoo or walmar can land you on a scam site where you may be asked for personal information or get automatically infected with a drive-by virus download. Some scam sites even have the trusted padlock in the browser bar!
Here’s a URL to a short article and video on the Sophos Cyber-security website that explains this very well: https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2018/01/09/how-one-letter-can-lead-you-to-a-scam-james-lyne-talks-typosquatting-with-nbc-news/
As users, we must be very aware of what we’re doing on the computer keyboard at all times. This advice is for both home users and company employees. Landing on a scam site can subject you to identity theft and open the doorway for malware and hackers to gain entry into company networks.
The internet is both wonderful and dangerous at the same time—when typing in URLs, slow down and be careful.
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