Overview of phishing landscape and homographs in Arabic domain names. Issue 4 (29th March 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ahmad, Humza; Erdodi, Laszlo
• Is Part Of: Security and privacy. Volume 4:Issue 4(2021)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2021-03-29
• Subjects: Arabic language -- browser extension -- homographs -- phishing -- social engineering; Computer security -- Periodicals; Data protection -- Periodicals; Cyberterrorism -- Periodicals; 005.8
• DOI: 10.1002/spy2.159
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2475-6725

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, we summarize the latest social engineering phishing attack types with the focus on domain name manipulation. Providing a fake domain is a crucial part of phishing attacks that can be carried out with different techniques such as cybersquatting, typosquattings, or homographs. We argue that homographs with special International Domain Names can be very serious threat for many users that can hardly be identified. We present the analysis of phishing attacks with Arabic domains and conclude that because of the linguistic complexity of the Arabic language and the missing support by the industrial tools expose millions of users to sophisticated domain manipulation based phishing attacks. To reduce the future risk of homograph attacks originating from Arabic internationalized domain names (IDNs) we suggest a change to the registration policy. We also present a browser extension to assist against homographs in current Arabic IDN namespace.