Glossary

Typosquatting — Domain Impersonation and Detection

Typosquatting is the registration of domain names that are intentional misspellings or lookalikes of legitimate domains, used to intercept traffic, conduct phishing attacks, or impersonate brands. Common techniques include character substitution, missing letters, doubled characters, and homoglyph attacks using visually similar Unicode characters.

Common Typosquatting Techniques

Typosquatting vs Cybersquatting

Typosquatting specifically targets users who mistype a URL. Cybersquatting is the broader practice of registering trademarked names. Both are used for phishing and brand abuse.

How to Detect Typosquatting

Monitor domain variants that resolve to active websites — these are the highest risk. A registered domain that doesn't resolve is less immediately dangerous than one serving live content.

How to Check for Typosquats

Use DomainPreflight's Typosquat Monitor to check 30-50 variants of your domain against live DNS — seeing which ones resolve and their risk level.

Check lookalike domains

Open Typosquat Monitor →