Website spoofing is the creation of a replica of a trusted site with the intention of misleading visitors to a phishing site.
Normally, the spoof website will adopt the legitimate logos, fonts, colors and functionality & design of the target website and sometimes has almost similar URL,to make the spoofed site look realistic.
Website spoofing (aka URL Spoofing) primarily goal is to mimic an existing site known and trusted by the user and use it for various malicious purposes.
A website (also written as web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web. There are also private websites that can only be accessed on a private network, such as a company's internal website for its employees. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, commerce, entertainment, or social networking. Hyperlinking between web pages guides the navigation of the site, which often starts with a home page.
Users can access websites on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The software application used on these devices is called a web browser.
In more simple words, A site or website is a central location of web pages that are related and accessed by visiting the home page of the website using a browser. For example, the CYBER4ALL
website address URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is https://www.cyber4all.in . From our home page, you could get access to any of the web pages (like this one) contained on our website.
Website spoofing refers to fraudulent websites that masquerade as legitimate sites by copying the design of the website as well as in some cases utilizing a URL similar to the real site. This Technique is also known as "URL Spoofing". It requires similar URL and same design of the original site.A spoofed website will typically copy some or all of a legitimate website's fonts, colors and layout, as well as images and logos used on the site in order to make the spoofed site look as authentic as possible.
What's Behind Website Spoofing Attempts?
While some website spoofing serves to spread fake news or simply parody legitimate sites or stories, in more nefarious cases cybercriminals rely on website spoofing and other techniques like email spoofing to mislead consumers into sharing private details like credit card information or their social security number.
Website spoofing is a common problem that has doubled in the last year, resulting in $1.3 billion in losses, according to the 2019 Thales Access Management Index
Loss of victim's sensitive information.
A more sophisticated attack results in an attacker creating a "shadow copy" of the World Wide Web by having all of the victim's traffic go through the attacker's machine, causing the attacker to obtain the gain login and other personal information from users.
The spoof site gatheres names, addresses, login information, payment card details, and other data.
As an example of the use of this technique to parody an organisation, in November 2006 two spoof websites, www.msfirefox.com and www.msfirefox.net, were produced claiming that Microsoft had bought Firefox and released "Microsoft Firefox 2007."
Website spoofing is the act of creating a website, as a hoax, with the intention of misleading readers that the website has been created by a different person or organization. Normally, the spoof website will adopt the design of the target website and sometimes has a similar URL. A more sophisticated attack results in an attacker creating a "shadow copy" of the World Wide Web by having all of the victim's traffic go through the attacker's machine, causing the attacker to obtain the victim's sensitive information.
Another technique is to use a 'cloaked' URL. By using domain forwarding, or inserting control characters, the URL can appear to be genuine while concealing the actual address of the malicious website. Punycode can also be used for this purpose. Punycode-based attacks exploit the similar characters in different writing systems in common fonts. For example, on one large font, the greek letter tau (τ) is similar in appearance to the latin undercase letter t.
The Google security team state that the address bar is the most important security indicator in modern browsers. This part of the browser supplies both the true identity of the website and verification that you are on the right website.
While a website redirected its visitor to another website with a closed port, the attacker could intervene and change the content of the current web page however they liked.
Since the URL bar already showed the address of the domain with the closed port , users were led to believe that they were browsing a legitimate site instead of an attacker-controlled one and are convinced to enter their credentials.
HOW TO PREVENT WEBSITE SPOOFING :
Method 1: Use Of Anti-Phishing Software
Anti-phishing software consists of computer programs that attempt to
identify phishing content contained in websites, e-mail, or other forms used to accessing data (usually from the internet) and block the content, usually with a warning to the user.
It is often integrated with web browsers and email clients as a toolbar that displays the real domain name for the website the viewer is visiting, in an attempt to prevent fraudulent websites from masquerading as other legitimate websites.
DNS filtering or Domain Name System filtering to give it its full title is technique of blocking access to certain websites, webpages, or IP addresses.
DNS is what allows easy to remember domain names to be used such as Wikipedia.com rather than typing in very difficult to remember IP addresses such as 198.35.26.96. DNS maps IP addresses to domain names.
When a domain is purchased from a domain register and that domain is hosted, it is assigned a unique IP address that allows the site to be located.
When you attempt to access a website, a DNS query will be performed. Your DNS server will look up the IP address of the domain of webpage, which will allow a connection to be made between the browser and the server where the website is hosted. The webpage will then be loaded.
WHAT IS DNS FILTER & IT'S WORKS ?
DNS filtering or Domain Name System filtering to give it its full title is a technique of blocking access to certain websites, webpages, or IP addresses. With DNS filtering in place, rather than the DNS server returning the IP address if the website exists, the request will be subjected to certain controls.
In 2006, OpenDNS began offering a free service to prevent users from entering website spoofing sites. Essentially, OpenDNS has gathered a large database from various anti-phishing and anti-botnet organizations as well as its own data to compile a list of known website spoofing offenders. When a user attempts to access one of these bad websites, they are blocked at the DNS level. APWG statistics show that most phishing attacks use URLs, not domain names, so there would be a large amount of website spoofing that OpenDNS would be unable to track. At the time of release, OpenDNS is unable to prevent unnamed phishing exploits that sit on Yahoo, Google etc.
Mittal Kapdiya
Mittal Kapadiya has well skill and experiences in Android & Web Application development. she has excellent catch on Python and various OS (Linux, Ubuntu & Windows ). She's so keen in Ethical Hacking and System Security Aspects and have good knowledge in it. Currently she's pursuing Masters in CYBER Security and is an active blogger at CYBER4ALL.
Email or call us with any questions or queries. We would be happy to answer your questions and set up any meetings, if requires so. CYBER4ALL can help setting up towards safe & Secure Cyberspace.
Website spoofing is the act of creating a website, as a hoax, with the intention of misleading readers that the website has been created by a different person or organization. Normally, the spoof website will adopt the design of the target website and sometimes has a similar URL.
While a website redirected its visitor to another website with a closed port, the attacker could intervene and change the content of the current web page however they liked.
Since the URL bar already showed the address of the domain with the closed port , users were led to believe that they were browsing a legitimate site instead of an attacker-controlled one and are convinced to enter their credentials.
