How to Identify High-Risk Web Addresses

 

Websites can be infected with malware and other malicious content. When this happens, the website is labeled high risk and remains so until it is cleaned of infection. A site with a clean history has a lower score than a new website with no infection history.

Identify high-risk web addresses, you should be wary of any websites that request your personal information or encourage you to click on an unwanted download. Scams often use pop-up windows to trick you into sharing your passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information. They also often include misspellings, grammatical errors and text that sounds unprofessional to make them more convincing.

Some red flags of a potentially dangerous web address are:

A URL that uses HTTP instead of HTTPS (the “S” indicates a secure connection). This is a common indicator of a fake website because it reduces your ability to verify if the website has a SSL certificate, which radically increases data security and reduces the risk of man-in-the-middle attack attempts.

Websites that promise virus or malware protection via one-click downloads. These are not likely legitimate sites because they rely on a small number of users to click on these downloads and thus help them spread malware or other infection.

Slightly incorrect domain names. Scammers tend to mimic parent sites by using slightly different domain names (for example Amazon might become amazon1 in the URL). This can be a good indication that the site is suspicious or impersonating a trusted brand.