Spoofed URL

A spoofed URL involves one website masquerading as another, often leveraging vulnerabilities in web browser technology to facilitate a malicious computer attack.

In such an attack scenario, an unsuspecting computer user visits a website and observes a familiar URL, like http://www.wikipedia.org, in the address bar.

These instances are generally harmless and conspicuously distinct from the genuine sites, as they typically do not exploit web browser vulnerabilities.

Another avenue for these exploits involves redirects within a host's file, rerouting traffic from legitimate sites to an alternate IP associated with the spoofed URL.

[3] Simply, a spoofed URL is a web address that illuminates an immense amount of deception through its ability to appear as an original site, despite it not being one.

Spoofed URLs, a universal defining identity for phishing scams, pose a serious threat to end-users and commercial institutions.

Email continues to be the favorite vehicle to perpetrate such scams mainly due to its widespread use combined with the ability to easily spoof them.

This forgery of a legitimate PayPal website allows hackers to gain personal and financial information and thus, steal money through fraud.

[8] Phishing is the action of fraudsters sending an email to an individual, hoping to seek private information used for identity theft, by falsely asserting to be a reputable legal business.