Fake website have been a thorn for long with many fraudulent websites using tricks to make their URLs look like the real deal, carefully checking the URL is one approach to avoiding danger. Now, Google wants to call them out. The company is working on a new warning in its Chrome browser.
It would appear when you're visiting a site that's mimicking a well-known web page.
For example, if you actually meant to go to "pay-pal.com" when you were headed to a look alike scam site called "paypal.com" instead.
It will help to ease the pressure off you to notice when somethings wrong with the URL.
That's important because most people don't notice when they're headed off to a scam site, Google Chrome engineer Emily Stark said in a talk at the Enigma Conference, a security and privacy event.
"What people are seeing in the URL bar really just isn't helpful to them as a security mechanism," Stark said.
The warning could help make it harder to carry out on one of the most pervasive and effective hacking attacks out there - phishing. If users heed Chrome warnings, it could save them from entering user names, passwords or credit card information into website controlled by criminals.
It could also keep them from downloading malicious software at scam websites that could do things like encrypt their data and demand a ransom.
Scammy websites use s number of tricks to look legitimate in that URL field at the top of your web browser.
They might use a slight misspelling, or swap out the number one for a lowercase letter L to look a legitimate website.
The latter is called a homograph attack, and it's powerful because it usually involves characters that the untrained eye will miss.
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