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- Cyber squatters are targeting Britain's biggest banks
- They use domains with tweaks to trick customers into handing over details
- 110 domains pretending to be HSBC are deemed 'high-risk'
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Online banking customers are being warned to watch out for copycat web addresses used by fraudsters to trick people out of their cash. In a growing trend known in the industry as 'cyber-squatting', fraudsters set up web addresses - also known as domain names - that look similar to the official versions. Unsuspecting banking customers click on or type these web addresses into their browsers thinking they are bringing up the real website of their bank. However, once on the fake sites, fraudsters try to trick their victims into handing over personal details, log-in information or downloading dangerous malware that infects their computer.
Some of Britain's biggest banks are being targeted, according to analysis by the research team at DomainTools.Among those heavily targeted is HSBC, which has 110 'high-risk' domains, it says. Furthermore, Barclays and Standard Chartered have 74, NatWest 66 and Lloyds 22. In total, 324 domains were identified as high-risk at the five big players – in other words, there are hundreds of domains that look genuine which are owned by nefarious hackers.
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