• Direct navigation - the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser - has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains - mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites - are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. • When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike “typosquatting” domain, they are typically brought to a placeholder page at a domain parking company that tries to monetize the wayward traffic by displaying links to a number of third-party websites that have paid to have their links shown. • A decade ago, ending up at one of these parked domains came with a relatively small chance of being redirected to a malicious destination: In 2014, researchers found (PDF) that parked domains redirected users to malicious sites less than five percent of the time - regardless of whether the visitor clicked on any links at the parked page. • But in a series of experiments over the past few months, researchers at the security firm Infoblox say they discovered the situation is now reversed, and that malicious content is by far the norm now for parked websites. • “In large scale experiments, we found that over 90% of the time, visitors to a parked domain would be directed to illegal content, scams, scareware and anti-virus software subscriptions, or malware, as the ‘click’ was sold from the parking company to adve

Direct navigation - the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser - has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains - mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites - are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. • When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike “typosquatting” domain, they are typically brought to a

Article Summaries:

  • Direct navigation - the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser - has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains - mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites - are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware. When Internet users try to visit expired domain names or accidentally navigate to a lookalike “typosquatting” domain, they are typically brought to a placeholder page at a domain parking company that tries to monetize the wayward traffic by displaying
  • A new Infoblox study shows that the vast majority of “parked” domains-expired or misspelled sites that normally display advertising-now redirect visitors to malicious content. Researchers found that over 90 % of such domains lead to scams, malware, or illegal material, a sharp rise from the <5 % rate reported in 2014. The threat is largely limited to residential IP addresses; users connecting via VPN or non‑residential networks typically see benign parking pages. The report highlights extensive typosquatting campaigns targeting major brands (e.g., Craigslist, YouTube, Google) and notes that some domains even accept email, facilitating business‑email‑compromise attacks.

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