Fake Websites
In cybersecurity, fake websites are deceptive online pages crafted to imitate legitimate, trusted websites. Malicious actors create these fraudulent sites to deceive users and trick them into performing actions that compromise their security.
Here are some key aspects of fake websites:
Deceptive Imitation: Fake websites often closely resemble the visual appearance of genuine websites, copying layouts, logos, and branding to fool visitors.
Malicious Intent: The primary purpose of fake websites is to steal users' sensitive information, which can include login credentials, financial data, or personal details.
Phishing Tactic: Fake websites are frequently used in phishing attacks, where users are lured to visit the site and enter their information through deceptive emails or messages.
URL Manipulation: Attackers may use URLs similar to the legitimate site's address but with subtle differences, such as misspellings or different domain extensions.
Fake websites pose a significant cybersecurity threat, as they can lead to identity theft, financial fraud, and other harmful consequences.
Here’s how ThreatNG can help with fake websites:
ThreatNG's ability to perform external, unauthenticated discovery is fundamental. It allows ThreatNG to map an organization's online presence, which is the first step in identifying potential fake websites that impersonate it.
ThreatNG's external assessment capabilities provide various ways to evaluate risks connected to fake websites:
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: ThreatNG analyzes externally accessible parts of web applications to pinpoint potential entry points for attackers. This is crucial because attackers might hijack legitimate web applications or parts of them to redirect users to fake websites.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG evaluates a website's susceptibility to subdomain takeovers by analyzing subdomains, DNS records, and SSL certificate statuses. Attackers often use compromised subdomains to host fake websites, so identifying and mitigating this risk is essential.
BEC & Phishing Susceptibility: ThreatNG assesses this risk based on several factors, including Domain Intelligence, which encompasses DNS Intelligence, Domain Name Permutations, Web3 Domains, and Email Intelligence. This evaluation is crucial, as fraudulent websites are a common tactic in phishing and Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. For instance, ThreatNG's exploration of Domain Name Permutations can indicate whether attackers have registered slightly altered domain names to mislead users.
Brand Damage Susceptibility: ThreatNG uses attack surface intelligence, digital risk intelligence, ESG Violations, Sentiment and Financials, and Domain Intelligence (including Domain Name Permutations and Web3 Domains). Fake websites can severely damage a brand's reputation, and ThreatNG's assessment helps understand and mitigate this risk.
Cyber Risk Exposure: ThreatNG uses its Domain Intelligence module to consider parameters like certificates, subdomain headers, vulnerabilities, and sensitive ports. This helps identify potential weaknesses attackers could exploit to create convincing fake websites.
3. Reporting
ThreatNG offers various reports, including those focused on security ratings and ransomware susceptibility. These reports can highlight the risks associated with fake websites and provide actionable information to address them.
4. Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG's continuous monitoring of the external attack surface and digital risk is vital. It enables the detection of fake websites and timely alerts about any changes.
ThreatNG's Investigation Modules are essential for detailed analysis:
Domain Record Analysis: ThreatNG analyzes domain records, identifying IPs, vendors, and technologies. This can help in tracing the infrastructure of a fake website.
Domain Name Permutations: ThreatNG identifies both taken and available domain name permutations. This is very useful for detecting typosquatting domains used in fake website attacks. For example, if a company's domain is "example.com," ThreatNG can find out if "examp1e.com" or "example.net" are registered.
Web3 Domains: ThreatNG identifies taken and available Web3 domains. As Web3 use increases, this capability becomes essential to prevent fake websites in decentralized environments.
Email Intelligence: ThreatNG analyzes email security presence (DMARC, SPF, DKIM records), predicts email formats, and harvests emails. This helps understand email spoofing, which is often used to direct users to fake websites.
WHOIS Intelligence: ThreatNG provides WHOIS analysis and identifies other domains owned. This can uncover connections between fake websites and other potentially malicious domains.
Subdomain Intelligence: ThreatNG analyzes subdomains, HTTP responses, headers, server headers, cloud hosting, content identification (including admin pages and APIs), ports, known vulnerabilities, and web application firewall discovery. This detailed analysis can reveal vulnerabilities attackers might exploit to host fake pages.
IP Intelligence: ThreatNG provides information on IPs, shared IPs, ASNs, country locations, and private IPs. This helps track down the servers hosting fake websites.
Certificate Intelligence: ThreatNG analyzes TLS certificates, including their status and issuers. This can help identify suspicious certificates used by fake sites.
Social Media: ThreatNG analyzes social media posts. This can help in detecting social media campaigns that promote fake websites.
Sensitive Code Exposure: ThreatNG discovers public code repositories and uncovers exposed credentials, secrets, and configuration files. Attackers might use this information to create more convincing fake websites.
Mobile Application Discovery: ThreatNG discovers mobile apps in marketplaces and analyzes their contents. This helps identify fake mobile apps that might be associated with counterfeit websites.
Search Engine Exploitation: ThreatNG helps investigate an organization’s susceptibility to exposing information via search engines. This can reveal information that attackers might use to make their fake sites appear more legitimate in search results.
Cloud and SaaS Exposure: ThreatNG identifies sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services and SaaS implementations, which helps identify potential cloud-based fake website attacks.
Online Sharing Exposure: ThreatNG identifies organizational presence within online code-sharing platforms. This can uncover information that could be used in fake website attacks.
Sentiment and Financials: ThreatNG analyzes lawsuits, layoff chatter, SEC filings, and ESG violations. This can provide context for potential fake website attacks, as attackers might exploit negative news.
Archived Web Pages: ThreatNG analyzes archived web pages. This can help understand website changes and identify potential spoofing tactics.
Dark Web Presence: ThreatNG monitors the dark web for organizational mentions, ransomware events, and compromised credentials. Compromised credentials can be used to facilitate fake website attacks.
Technology Stack: ThreatNG identifies the technologies used by the organization. This information can be used to create more convincing fake sites.
ThreatNG maintains intelligence repositories for various data, including dark web information, compromised credentials, ransomware events, and domain-related data. These repositories provide context for investigating and understanding fake website threats.
7. Working with Complementary Solutions
While the document doesn't detail specific integrations, ThreatNG's comprehensive data and analysis capabilities can enhance other security tools:
SIEM (Security Information and Event Management): ThreatNG's findings can be integrated into a SIEM to correlate external attack surface data with internal security events, providing a more complete view.
SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response): ThreatNG can trigger automated responses in SOAR platforms to take down fake websites or block malicious IPs.
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs): ThreatNG's intelligence on domain permutations, Web3 domains, and dark web activity can enrich TIPs, improving threat detection.
Email Security Solutions: Integrating ThreatNG's Email Intelligence can improve the detection of phishing emails that link to fake websites.
Examples of ThreatNG Helping:
ThreatNG's Domain Name Permutations capability detects a newly registered domain resembling a bank's website. An alert is triggered, and the security team discovers a fake login page designed to steal customer credentials.
ThreatNG's Mobile Application Discovery uses a company's branding to identify an unofficial mobile app. Further investigation reveals that the app directs users to a fake website to steal personal information.
ThreatNG's Search Engine Exploitation feature finds sensitive information exposed through search engines. Attackers could use this information to make their fake websites appear more legitimate.
Examples of ThreatNG Working with Complementary Solutions:
ThreatNG detects a fake website and sends an alert to a SIEM. The SIEM correlates this with network traffic data to identify fake site users.
ThreatNG's threat intelligence on malicious domains is shared with an email security solution. The email security solution blocks emails containing links to these domains.
A SOAR platform uses ThreatNG's API to automate the takedown of detected fake websites.
ThreatNG offers many capabilities to help organizations identify, assess, monitor, and investigate fake website threats. Its intelligence repositories and investigation modules, particularly Domain Intelligence, provide valuable insights and can enhance the effectiveness of other security tools.
