Homograph attacks are cyber attacks that involve the substitution of characters from one language with similar-looking characters from another language in order to either spoof a website or to spread malicious software. For example, an attacker may substitute a Cyrillic “a” (а) for a Latin “a” (a) in order to create a website domain that looks like it belongs to a legitimate business. It is often done to steal customer information or spread malware.
Homograph attacks exploit the fact that different languages may use the same character but with a different meaning. For example, the lowercase letter “a” can be written with different alphabets and symbols, but it still looks the same. As a result, it can be easy for an attacker to create malicious websites or emails that use characters from a different language but look identical to the intended victim.
Homograph attacks are particularly difficult to detect because they often involve characters from a language that the target is not familiar with. Unfortunately, the only way to protect against these types of attacks is to create strict rules around URLs and email addresses. Companies should also ensure that their domain names are properly registered so that they are not vulnerable to homograph attacks.
