Domain Registration Related News
Experts: International domain names may pose
threat
February 2005
Security experts are warning about a new threat
to Web surfers: malicious Web sites that use
international domain names to spoof the Web
addresses of legitimate sites.
The new trick is a variation of a known
technique called the "homograph attack" and takes
advantage of loopholes in the way some popular Web
browsers display domain names that use non-English
characters. It could allow malicious hackers and
online identity theft groups to trick unsuspecting
users into divulging sensitive personal
information, according to advisories from The
Shmoo Group, a hacker collective, and Secunia.
The warning was published after a demonstration of
the new kind of homograph attacks at ShmooCon, a
hacker convention in Washington, D.C. Secunia, of
Copenhagen, issued advisories on the new issue for
users of affected browsers and declared the issue
"moderately critical."
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