Look Out for This Subtle Scammer Trick

A scammer’s best friend is subtlety. Unfortunately for them, that’s hard to come by in the trade. Many of the telltale signs of spam and scam are well known and easy to spot, which is how so many messages end up in your spam folder rather than the top of your inbox.

However, not all of the tricks scammers use are so obvious. In fact, there are plenty that are downright tricky, and it’s important to watch out for them so you don’t fall victim to their scams—your personal data and the data of your business rely on it.

One such trick is to use similar-looking characters to trick you into thinking an email domain or website is a legitimate link, when in actuality, it’s a fake.

Take for example the following: maybank2u.com and maybαnk2u.com. At first glance, these two addresses look the same (although the difference is noticeable on this site), and if you were looking for maybank2u, you may click after a quick check. However, look closer at the second “a” in the second link. It’s actually not an “a,” rather, “α,” from the Cyrillic alphabet.

This can be quite easy to overlook. For example, citibαnk.com looks so similar to citibank.com, but, again, uses the Cyrillic “α” rather than the “a” all legitimate links in the US use. Similarly, if you receive an email from support@αmαzon.com, that’s a fake, as Amazon’s name should actually read “amazon.”

It’s a good reminder that URLs and email addresses need to be carefully checked before being clicked on.