Bogus Twitter and Wikipedia sites fined and booted offline [Naked Security Article]

[Vextor]

Two typosquatting sites, "Wikapedia.com" and "Twtter.com," have been forced offline and fined £100,000 ($156,000) each by a UK telephone regulatory agency.

Before the sites were kicked offline, visitors to the sites were greeted with look-alike versions of Wikipedia and Twitter that pulled a bait and switch, offering advertisements for iPad and MacBook competitions.

Full Article from NakedSecurity by Sophos : LINK

Well, people who have bad spelling could easily have accessed either one and believed it was real. Companies need to buy these fake domains before they can be used.

 

[HeffeD]

Companies need to buy these fake domains before they can be used.

No, I don't think anyone needs to buy the fake domains. They just need to be shut down, as was apparently done with these two sites. (I haven't read the article)

Companies buying these fake domains only makes the practice even more profitable for those that are creating the phishing sites.

 

[Jack]

Companies need to buy these fake domains before they can be used.

No, I don't think anyone needs to buy the fake domains. They just need to be shut down, as was apparently done with these two sites. (I haven't read the article)

Companies buying these fake domains only makes the practice even more profitable for those that are creating the phishing sites.

This two typos aren't isolated cases, there are a lot of domains that are just waiting for you to make a typing mistake while trying to go to youtube, gmail, facebook or apple for instance...
As far as I understand , domain registrants have already sold this domains so part of the damage is done , however major browser could warn the user when they made a type , basically asking them if they did intentionally or not.
ISP or DNS services could also get more involved in stopping this widespread SCAM attack , while the users could actually stop trying to win a iPhone by completing those lame surveys...

 

[jamescv7]

Mostly the case of typosquatting were scam having to fill the personal information. Advertisements were appeared everywhere on a fake site.

Actually those typosquatting isn't to be fun anymore since its a type of vector to victimized users to show it was an original site.