The U.S. Coast Guard says typosquatting campaigns are targeting the Marine Transportation System by spoofing real maritime websites and warns web users to be cautious.
Typosquatting is akin to phishing, a scam that causes people to reveal sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers. When an individual misspells a common word in a URL, they are directed to what looks like a legitimate maritime website but is actually fake.
U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command released an alert, 01-22 in March reporting “a recent uptick in malicious actors.”
According to the USCG, “The spoofed websites are professional in appearance and quite sophisticated, some of which are presenting as .com domains. This level of detail can make it difficult to discern a real site from a fraudulent one.”
The USCG says maritime organizations can help reign in these attacks by reporting misspellings before the malicious sites do and by intentionally registering domains similar to their own to deter adversaries from creating typosquatting domains.
The USCG advises all web users to be wary of third party links and phishing scams.
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