Learn to spot Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) spoofing
Homograph attacks (also called Homoglyph attacks) exploit visually similar characters from different scripts (like Latin vs. Cyrillic or Greek) to create deceptive domain names.
Attackers register domains using Punycode (prefixed with xn--). To the computer, xn--80ak6aa92e.com is a unique address, but to your browser, it renders as apple.com (using Cyrillic characters).
apple.com (Cyrillic)xn--80ak6aa92e.com| Visual Spoof | Legitimate | Technique |
|---|---|---|
| micrоsоft.com | microsoft.com | Cyrillic 'о' (U+043E) instead of Latin 'o' |
| paypaӏ.com | paypal.com | Cyrillic 'ӏ' (U+04CF) instead of Latin 'l' |
| tωitter.com | twitter.com | Greek 'ω' instead of 'w' |
| adoḅe.com | adobe.com | Latin 'ḅ' (dotted) instead of 'b' |
Paste a suspicious domain below. We will analyze the characters to see if they are standard Latin (ASCII) or potential homoglyphs.
Look closely at the characters.
Actual Domain: