Despite all of the sophisticated ways a criminal can attack companies over the internet, tricking people into clicking malicious links or paying false invoices remains very effective.
Copycat domains (often referred to as cyber squatting or domain squatting) are close permutations of the domains of trusted websites which trick users into thinking they are legitimate.
Procurement teams should be aware of them because it is very easy to create a copycat domain claiming to belong to a supplier and use it to steal login details or send fake invoices.
Part of what makes copycat domains so effective is their simplicity. All it takes is to register a domain which looks similar to the domain being copied and, because most people aren't looking for problems with the links they click, they often go unnoticed. For example:
mysupplier.com:
- mysuppier.com
- mysupplyer.com
- my-supplier.com
- mysupplier.net
Any of the above could be convincingly used to trick a busy procurement professional into entering their credentials, downloading a virus or processing an invoice for payment.
In some cases, these URLs will not load as a website and are only used to send phishing emails. In the Darkbeam platform, these URLs are shown with the highest risk level.