What types of typosquatting permutations does UpGuard protect against

Learn about how UpGuard can protect your organization from typosquatting-based attacks.

Written by Abi Tyas Tunggal

UpGuard monitors for a variety of typosquatting permutation types. In the examples below, we'll use the domain example.com to illustrate how they differ from one another.

Typing error typosquatting permutations

  • Insertion: Inserts characters next to other characters which are close to each other on a keyboard e.g. examople.com.

  • Omission: This removes a single character from the domain name e.g. eample.com

  • Repetition: This repeats a single character from the domain name e.g. exaample.com

  • Replacement: Replaces a character with another character that is close to it on a keyboard e.g. examole.com

  • Transposition:

    Swaps the positions of 2 adjacent characters e.g. examlpe.com

  • Vowel swap:

    Swaps vowels in the domain name e.g. examplo.com

Visual similarity typosquatting permutations

  • Addition: A letter is added to the end of the domain name e.g. examplea.com

  • Homoglyph: Characters are replaced with another character which is visually similar. See below for details.

  • Hyphenation: Inserts hyphens at various positions in the domain name e.g. exam-ple.com

  • Subdomain: Inserts a period in the domain name to create a subdomain of a different parent domain e.g. exa**.**mple.com

  • TLD swap: Changes the TLD of the domain e.g. example**.io**

Other typosquatting permutations

  • Bitsquatting: A single bit is changed in the domain name e.g. excmple.com. This is designed to exploit faulty storage devices which mutate bits in the domain name.

  • Dictionary: Appends a word to the start or end of the domain, e.g. example-download.com or businessexample.com for example.com

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