Many people fall victim to fake websites by giving out information or money through fraudulent websites. These fake websites look like the real version but are designed to trick you into inputting information to access confidential information or to manipulate you into giving out money. The URL may be similar or look identical to the URL of the real version of the website, and it’s something to be aware about. However, there are ways to identify fake websites before you fall victim to the fraudulent intentions of fake websites. If you are unsure if a website is real, manually navigate to the legit website to be safe. Typically, these fake websites are derived from clicking on a suspicious link that directs you to some website.  

Banking scams are extremely common as threat actors try many tactics to steal the victim’s login credentials for the victim’s bank account. For instance, you receive an email from a bank, Wells Fargo, saying that someone has wired money to you, and you need to click a link to verify such transaction. However, you didn’t expect anyone to wire money to you, so you inspect the email for anything suspicious. You hover your mouse cursor over the button that will redirect you to an external website, to which you notice a popup with a strange URL. In this case, the link should not be clicked to prevent compromising personal information. 

Another example comes from any sweepstakes telling you that you have won a new impact drill from the hardware store. For example, you receive an email telling you that you have won a new Makita impact drill from Home Depot. You’re in extreme shock as big box home improvement warehouses don’t typically do such giveaways like that. You choose to click the link to access the giveaway. The website of the giveaway already has some red flags that include a long URL link with “Home Depot” spelled wrong, no SSL certificate, and no Home Depot Logo anywhere on the site. The real Home Depot website has its logo visible, and it’s clickable to redirect you home to Home Depot’s main page. You are asked to simply cover shipping. Thus, this giveaway sounds too good to be true and decided not to input any information on this fraudulent website. 

A final example involves email and text scams indicating that you have received a package, but it’s undeliverable as you need to verify some details with USPS. For instance, you receive a text message stating such shipping circumstances. You click the link out of curiosity to be redirected to USPS’ fake website. The URL is quite long, and the quality of the website looks out of place. You are also asked to input some form of payment information to finalize shipping of the mystery package. However, we all know that there is no package to be shipped, nor do the threat actors intend to send anything. The threat actors intend to steal your credit card information to make unauthorized transactions. Thus, you decide it’s in your best interest to close out the fraudulent website before any information is compromised.