An anonymous person recently submitted a list of nearly a thousand domain names that are substantially similar to many well-known brand or institution sites. A sign that can predict potential future hacks.
Wyoutube.fr, lefirgaro.fr or beboncoin.fr, such are the 967 domain names that were filed in the middle of last week with the German filing company Key-Systems. Each of these domain names copies, except for a few typing or spelling errors, many sites well known to the general public. This technique, which is calledtyposquatting”, allows us to abuse our brain’s ability to reconstruct and understand words despite mistakes. And when the misspellings are missing, then it is an abusive or misleading registration of name such as tax-reductions.fr.
The day before yesterday, a third party registered 967 .fr domains (i.e. 31% of the .fr domains registered that day!) similar to the names of many organizations. Among them : @InseeFr, @AcCreteil, @Conforama, @forumactive, @Alpes-Maritimes, @free…
The full list: https://t.co/ZtE7FqHEq3
— Mikołajek (@_mikolajek_) July 22, 2022
We then find an incalculable number of copies of sites ranging from institutions such as asemblee-nationale.fr Where sorbone.frto regularly visited sites such as alexress.com Where zalandon.frvia media such as huffingtopost.co.uk, lesmonde.fr. This kind of domain name is frequently used in two scams. Either users, following an internet search, click without realizing it on these false sites which can reserve many unpleasant surprises. Either a large phishing campaign can be set up. We will have to be extra vigilant.
Worry before you are alarmed
If this type of operation is worrying, it remains rather rare and subject to various controls. Pierre Bonis, Managing Director of Afnic, the registration office designated by the State for the management of .fr domain names, confirms to the Parisian that a “justification procedure” was opened for this suspected case. The buyer has seven days to confirm the identification data he provided when making his purchase, amounting to €6,800. If nothing is done, the various sites will close after a month.
However, if you find yourself confronted with this kind of suspicious site, it is always possible to report it to the competent authorities, such as signal-spam.fr or the Pharos platform available on internet-signalement.gouv.fr.