Lookalike domain
Also called typosquatting, fake website, lookalike site
A web address made to look like a real one, with a swapped letter or extra word, used for fake login and shopping pages.
A lookalike domain is the address half of a fake website. The page can be a pixel-perfect copy of your bank, but its address has to be different, so scammers pick one that passes a quick glance: a 1 for an l, an extra hyphen, "secure" or "login" added, a different ending such as .co instead of .com.
AI adds a new twist. Researchers at Netcraft asked an AI model where to log in to 50 well-known brands; about a third of the addresses it gave weren't owned by those brands, and many weren't registered at all, so anyone could buy them and wait. Criminals can register the addresses AI tends to invent.
The fix is to stop reading addresses and start going in your own way: the app, a bookmark you made, or a password manager that refuses to fill a site it doesn't know.
For example
paypa1-secure.com instead of paypal.com, with a perfect copy of the sign-in page.
Put it to use
Where you'll meet lookalike domain in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, how to use it there, and the mix-up most people make.
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