Show IDN punycode in Firefox to avoid phishing URLs

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Mattias Geniar, February 19, 2018

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Pop quiz: can you tell the difference between these 2 domains?

Both host a version of the popular crypto exchange Binance.

The second image is the correct one, the first one is a phishing link with the letter ‘n’ replaced by ‘n with a dot below it’ (U+1E47). It’s not a piece of dirt on your screen, it’s an attempt to trick you to believe it’s the official site.

Firefox has a very interesting option called IDN_show_punycode. You can enable it in about:config`.

Once enabled, it’ll make that phishing domain look like this:

Doesn’t look that legit now anymore, does it?

I wish Chrome offered a similar option though, could prevent quite a few phishing attempts.

 



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