Top 5 Tips to Identify a Fake or Scam Website

A fake website is highly favorable for con people. It usually has a short lifespan. This is rooted early and shut down by illegitimate business owners once the time comes. One common example is, sometimes you can get an email from your bank informing you to change your password for a massive breach. You will just click on the link and end up on their website that looks a little bit different to you. What is the version of the website? Is it redesigned or legit in the first place?

Another example is when you shop online, you have to share your personal details, financial information. Even with this your device gets infected with a virus or malware. You can identify the red flags but it is important to know the legitimacy of a website. Fake websites have become a common dagger to internet users. It is an important source of phishing scams through which fraudsters can misguide you and lure you for sharing sensitive data including credit cards account numbers etc. From this website blog, you could be able to find out the tips, tricks, and tools to identify a scam website and stay out of this.

5 Tips to Find out a Fake Website-

If you put a close look at a website, can you tell if it is a secure website? How can you identify a secure website? Well, if you are now sure, then you can get vital information of how you can do it easily.

#1 Is This a Safe URL? How to Know That?

Phishers lure people to their phishing websites by adding malicious links. Before clicking any such link embedded in your emails, you must be aware that it could be illegitimate. A fake website always will impersonate a real website. You need to find the website URL carefully if it contains letters of the authorized website as a subdomain of the fake one. Say if you receive a link containing text like www.google.com, would you click it? Definitely, you should not as it will not be the real Google link. But if you just find it at a glance instead of having a close view, you will fail to notice that.

For a safe transaction, you should never enter personal information into a site that is beginning with http://. If you find the domain name just before https, then it has the highest level of encryption and can be trusted.

So the elements that attackers can control of a website are listed as-

• Content of the website

Content can be tailored to mimic any website. A browser can never warn you that you are looking for a fake page.

• Duplicate favicon

An attacker can use Google’s favicon that is located at the top left and use it on a fake website.

• Control any domain

An attacker can control and alter other domains even that are coming before the top-level domain. They can use a similar domain to any domain to trick a visitor.

• Fake subdomain

If you overlook it, a subdomain can exactly look like a domain. They can represent google.com.search-source.com at you where search-source is the main domain of her fake website.

 #2: Consider the Domain Age

Scammers or attackers know that people tend to shop online during holidays than usual. They combine real-looking websites quickly around in front of them. If you know the domain age properly then you can understand how long the website has been in this business that can prove its veracity.

You can find https://whois.domaintools.com/ which is a domain tracker giving you information about a domain name. You can gather information about the domain name registered to who, where they are, how long the website has been active, and so on.

#3: What Is the source link?

You may stay relaxed as most of the dubious message ages will automatically head straight to the spam folder. But it is not always the same case, as sometimes the real messages also enter the spam section even. Scammers can hijack email accounts to give their phishing email authority which is not necessary to send an email from a real web address and display name. A compromised email sending server helps an attacker alter from the field. 

The phishers also even send emails from the accounts that look similar to those of the real accounts. They even add a customer support section with the sender’s names which further diminishes the chance of identifying anything suspicious which makes it daunting to distinguish between a real or fake website. 

Hence, if you are unable to solicit an email or the sender is unknown to you then you must ring the alarm bell. If it is phishing, then you need to think about it nonetheless.

 #4: Protect Your Vital Info

If a profile seems to be sketchy to you at the top for protecting your identity you can find a number of tools. Like,

• https://www.asecurelife.com/best-password-manager/ this helps you to keep your personal info safe from the hackers.
• https://www.asecurelife.com/identity-theft-protection-reviews/ helps you to keep your identity from any breach.
• https://www.asecurelife.com/best-credit-report-monitoring/ helps to lock your financial information.

Hence, you can take a close view of personal and financial information.

 #5: Find Online Reviews

Real websites always have many online reviews, if the website you are browsing does not have a single review then you must stay away. For online orders, you must check if the website is listed or not. If it is not listed then it is considered a big red flag.

Sometimes, the scammers maintain their online presence. You must know that fake reviews look generic and lack detailed information about their good or bad experience. If you understand that it is robotic or shallow, you've got reason to be skeptical.

You should search for the reviews by using the brand name and reviews. If these reviews and posts don't look real or genuine then the website owners of the fake sites have tried their best to look legit by targeting such keywords.

Key takeaways

So, from the above-mentioned in-detailed information, you will no doubt be able to find a fake website. Some handy tips for you-

• Stop communicating a scammer you are in touch with for a long time
  
  
• Don’t rush for the payments to a scam website
  
  
• Ignore using any compromised credit card and freeze the usage anymore to avoid further damages
  
  
• Update your passwords and PINS
  
  

It will no longer be an overwhelming task for you anymore to find a scam or fake website. The fraudsters may seem to be intelligent enough to steal your treasure by intruding using unauthorized gateways, but this guide will help you to be safe.