[Caution] Beware of fake websites using acrylic alphabets

[NurseHub]

Be careful of any website that you use frequently or you're using for the first time, there have been occasions of cloned websites but it's not been taking note of most of the time.

If you go to codeacadamy.com you can learn how to clone websites for free and this has raised alarms for people in Nigeria as hackers or scammers have used this opportunity to create fake web domains that look exactly like the usual website using them to compromise your devices and get informations or hack into your accounts.

Bank websites are the recent victims of this clone websites in Nigeria, for example Ecobank, United Bank of Africa etc, I brought this up because I know we use this banks or our families do so we have to educate them to be very careful before visiting a website.

Here is an example of how this works.
1. They use acrylic alphabets like (ãåáâàā, ìîíï, úù, óòøō, éèēêë), in place of real alphabets in a place where it doesn't look obviously to users hence we consider it legitimate without second thoughts.

2. they use this type of strategy in a popular website that people visit regularly, like Amazon etc, for instance they use spell Amazon.com like this Amázon.cøm or something similar.

In conclusion let's be guided in website that we visit.
[1] You can read more about it here:
https://www.bca.co.id/en/informasi/awas-modus/2023/06/26/07/22/waspada-website-palsu-menggunakan-abjad-karakter-yang-mirip-dengan-aslinya

[I_Anime]

Is not only acrylic alphabets you should watch out for . Like the stunt a Nigerian pulled off days back impersonating trump Vance inaugural committee.

By just changing the capital letter I to small letter L, when creating the fake web . And they literally donated $250,000 to that same fake web , so you have to watch out for stuff like this .

[Charles-Tim]

Is not only acrylic alphabets you should watch out for . Like the stunt a Nigerian pulled off days back impersonating trump Vance inaugural committee.

By just changing the capital letter I to small letter L, when creating the fake web . And they literally donated $250,000 to that same fake web , so you have to watch out for stuff like this .

Although, the goal of this discussion would still be the same thing. The fake site will look similar to the real site.

About the one you are referring to, the letter i is in small letter and not in capital letter

Real: @t47inaugural.com
Fake: @t47lnaugural.com (with a lowercase “L” replacing “I”)

If real email is in capital letter, it will be harder to know the real one from the fake one because I (i) is harder to differentiate from l (L).

[WhoYouCantKill]

E just good for people to ask questions for wetin them no understand or dey familiar with am, make e no put them for problem.

And e go also help them to fit dey able to know or identify the real from the fake, because the way the country be and no be everybody fit dey work to earn, some people just like as them dey use illegal ways to make a living, na why people gats to be more careful and informed too.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

About the one you are referring to, the letter i is in small letter and not in capital letter

Real: @t47inaugural.com
Fake: @t47lnaugural.com (with a lowercase “L” replacing “I”)

If real email is in capital letter, it will be harder to know the real one from the fake one because I (i) is harder to differentiate from l (L).

This is the format hackers used to scam multinational companies off their mailbox, they simply hack the mail, clone the name of mail that wants to do business with the other companies and hide the real negotiator away from the business discussion. This format is very popular and it's hard to detect too because the difference in letter and alphabet is hidden a little bit.

[Ever-young]

And e go also help them to fit dey able to know or identify the real from the fake, because the way the country be and no be everybody fit dey work to earn, some people just like as them dey use illegal ways to make a living, na why people gats to be more careful and informed too.

Some set of people don just normalize to they thief from people way they suffer to make the money, and the thing there be say the same effort way dem they spend to carry thief if dem put am for good way dem fit use am create something way fit give dem money, the kind energy and passion some people carry they do site cloning, impersonation and other things just too much to waste only for where dem wan use am take another man sweat.

[Princess Leah]

About the one you are referring to, the letter i is in small letter and not in capital letter

Real: @t47inaugural.com
Fake: @t47lnaugural.com (with a lowercase “L” replacing “I”)

If real email is in capital letter, it will be harder to know the real one from the fake one because I (i) is harder to differentiate from l (L).

This is the format hackers used to scam multinational companies off their mailbox, they simply hack the mail, clone the name of mail that wants to do business with the other companies and hide the real negotiator away from the business discussion. This format is very popular and it's hard to detect too because the difference in letter and alphabet is hidden a little bit.

To avoid being the prey on the Internet you'll need to be as smart as those scammers sometimes even smarter to make it tough to be their victims, it doesn't only end with being knowledgeable cause lots of people who claim to have knowledge still got scammed, take the recent case of  Trumps inaugural donation scam for an instance.

 The Donor who got scammed was an intelligent person, he might even attended the best school abroad but he wasn't smart or careful enough to notice the format the scammer used to steal the donations. But I believe that after that particular case lots of companies and donors would start being extremely careful even though I'm pretty sure that some would still fall for it.

[Odogwu-Blockchain]

About the one you are referring to, the letter i is in small letter and not in capital letter

Real: @t47inaugural.com
Fake: @t47lnaugural.com (with a lowercase “L” replacing “I”)

If real email is in capital letter, it will be harder to know the real one from the fake one because I (i) is harder to differentiate from l (L).

This is the format hackers used to scam multinational companies off their mailbox, they simply hack the mail, clone the name of mail that wants to do business with the other companies and hide the real negotiator away from the business discussion. This format is very popular and it's hard to detect too because the difference in letter and alphabet is hidden a little bit.

To avoid being the prey on the Internet you'll need to be as smart as those scammers sometimes even smarter to make it tough to be their victims, it doesn't only end with being knowledgeable cause lots of people who claim to have knowledge still got scammed, take the recent case of  Trumps inaugural donation scam for an instance.

You can only know the tactics used by hacker or a scammer if you are a scammer before, no matter how intelligent you think you are, a non scammer will fall victim. It is very hard to scam a scammer no matter how hard you try, that's most companies employ hackers into their IT department for security reasons, to detect every attack sent by companies trying to do business with them.

Hackers are pretty smart enough to detect another hackers bad intentions, the same way thieves know how thief operates because it's their lifestyle.

[Sticky Bomb]

Every website has a uniqueness and it's in it's domain names. It's the standard that no two websites can ever have the same domain name, and same site extension name. so you may only need to check the URL and note suspicious ones.

For example https://www.facebook.com is different from https://www.facebook.online  or http://www.facebook.com and still different from https://www.fb.facebook.com, so if you can learn to identify the discrepancy in the domain names, you're 95% safe.

[Smartvirus]

Every website has a uniqueness and it's in its domain names. It's the standard that no two websites can ever have the same domain name, and same site extension name. so you may only need to check the URL and note suspicious ones.

This is indeed true and as true as it is, people have never stopped falling victim. I recall a thread here somewhere, asking users to spot the difference between 2 domain names and I tell you, it was the most difficult one I’ve seen ever.

There was literally no difference as, this domain names were said to use both Latin alphabets and English in its formation where the similar characters were utilized.

Now, you wouldn’t login on this site by inputting the characters yourself so, they are promoted by links. That’s the more reason why, it’s important you don’t depend on links to login some of your favorite sites, type in the characters yourself.

[Man of peace]

Thank you so much for your beautiful information about the fake website, but my question is, please how can one identify the real one since they also use the same alphabet?does anything differentiate them so that we can easily identify them whenever we come across such things, because if there is nothing that  can differentiate them,then it simply means we will continue been a victim of that.

And again I think it will be very good if the original website  owners should always have something like symbols that would enable users to quickly know that this is the real one and that symbol should not be found in the fake ones,they should not allowed any fake website creators to have access to that symbol no matter what,so as to protect their customers and also help promote their website too.. I think with this idea it will help them the website owners and also help us the users..

[casey15]

This is definitely worth nothing.. it is one of schemes that scammers use. One can never be too careful.. I do believe that every company that deals with people's data should educate their staf on healthy internet practices because something like this can easily be missed even by the most careful employee which can lead to a security breach.. I think that we should all take time to scan through mails and links even when they are from a legitimate source, you never can tell what is going on at the other side of the computer.

[Africolo]

Thank you so much for your beautiful information about the fake website, but my question is, please how can one identify the real one since they also use the same alphabet?does anything differentiate them so that we can easily identify them whenever we come across such things, because if there is nothing that  can differentiate them,then it simply means we will continue been a victim of that.

This is why you're always advised to look closely to links you click and also double check URL before you visit a website. The first thing is just checking out for homoglyphs/ typosquatting symbols cause that's what fake websites uses. Some modern browsers usually warm of fake/ duplicate websites anyway.

And again I think it will be very good if the original website  owners should always have something like symbols that would enable users to quickly know that this is the real one and that symbol should not be found in the fake ones,they should not allowed any fake website creators to have access to that symbol no matter what,so as to protect their customers and also help promote their website too.. I think with this idea it will help them the website owners and also help us the users..

Real websites uses real alphabets, fake websites uses homoglyphs  or typosquatting

[promise444c5]

The real problem is these domains can be tricky to identify unless they use things like omissions or close spellings that sometimes give them away. Some domain registrars reject them if they suspect the name is meant to imitate another domain but sadly,  not all..some allow almost anything.
 Another way to stay safe is to look up the domain and bookmark the legit site the first time you visit it after verifying it. We just need to be more careful with sites that handle financial or sensitive data.

[Africolo]

The real problem is these domains can be tricky to identify unless they use things like omissions or close spellings that sometimes give them away. Some domain registrars reject them if they suspect the name is meant to imitate another domain but sadly,  not all..some allow almost anything.
 Another way to stay safe is to look up the domain and bookmark the legit site the first time you visit it after verifying it. We just need to be more careful with sites that handle financial or sensitive data.

Unfortunately they do not as long as the entered domain name is available, unless it being reported severally with evidence of dubious activities and most times they don't even act in those reports.

[promise444c5]

Unfortunately they do not as long as the entered domain name is available, unless it being reported severally with evidence of dubious activities and most times they don't even act in those reports.

Most but not all though, some won’t allow you to have a close domain that could imitate as another domain especially if it’s a well known domain and I believe most popular domains are the target. Some registrars do allow typing manually the domain you want and then it searches for availability before acceptance or give you other available suggestions.. after which it has to go through manual verification , sometimes depends on the TLDs but generally, registration data policy doesn’t have that much restriction on generic TLDs in that aspect .. .
Reporting it if spotted is also a good idea..