How a missing full stop ends with a dot con

 

Gallery

By Hani Megerisi

Posted on 9 Mar 2010 at 16:57

Cybersquatters are exploiting poor punctuation to send people to shady websites.

Although large corporations are accustomed to registering alternative spellings of their domain names, cybersquatters are now preying on people's propensity to miss out full stops when typing web addresses, according to a report by domain management firm CSC Labs.

Removing the full stop between prefixes such as ‘www’ and the domain name was found to be a common missed variation, as well as removing the stop between the address and 'com'.

In terms of distribution of malware, what we’ve found over the past few years is that hackers are using websites to host malware, whether these be malicious sites or legitimate sites

Other prefixes commonly missed include 'the', 'e' and 'my', according to the CSC study.

Companies such as Apple and the BBC are among those being targeted by the cybersquatters.

Experts warn that the failure to register such sites can put users in danger. “In terms of distribution of malware, what we’ve found over the past few years is that hackers are using websites to host malware, whether these be malicious sites or legitimate sites that have been compromised,” said David Emm, senior technology consultant at Kapersky Labs.

Malware isn't the only danger posed by such sites. “Cybersquatting is a bigger issue in terms of legal and brand image. Let’s say a well-known company has a site variation that it hasn’t adopted… in the past people were looking to cash in on it by buying it and trying to sell it to the company.”

“People could put stuff on there to damage the brand or stuff that looks like it's coming from the brand. Even people just using the site as a personal one may be putting legal material on there that is not how the brand wishes to be seen”.