How to Spot Phishing and Typosquatting Domains

Typosquatting is when someone registers a domain that's a near-identical copy of a legitimate one — hoping to catch users who mistype a URL, or to send convincing phishing emails from a domain that looks right at a glance.

Common Techniques

Attackers use a handful of proven patterns: swapping a letter for a similar-looking one (using a zero instead of an 'o'), adding or removing a single character, transposing two adjacent letters, or registering the same name under a different, less common top-level domain (like .info or .xyz instead of .com).

Why It's Dangerous for Businesses

Beyond tricking individual users, a well-crafted lookalike domain can be used to intercept customer support emails, host fake login pages that steal credentials, or damage a brand's reputation if customers associate the scam with the real company.

What You Can Do

Regularly scan for lookalike domains registered against your brand name so you can catch impersonation attempts early — and report or pursue takedown of malicious ones before they cause damage. Nexora Shield's Phishing & Typosquatting Detector automates this by generating common variations of your domain and checking which ones are actually registered.