In recent years phishing scams have continued to evolve on par with the technology. Google is currently working on a new protocol that should allow users to identify the dangers posed by some URLs that could be infected with malware.
The new feature has been presented this week during a cybersecurity conference that took place in California. It seems that the tool is able to scan the URLs and differentiate between regular ones and those that feature a name that seems to be odd or a suspicious domain.
The use of a fake site that replicates many of the original features in order to fool users to enter their sign-in credentials is one of the oldest tricks in the book but it continues to be highly-effective, even more so when the targeted users aren’t tech-savvy.
A pop-up will appear and warn the user that he or she is attempting to visit a site that does not seem to be like the versions which were visited in the past. If the user is convinced that the site in question is real and wishes to proceed clicking or tapping on a dismiss button will remove the message.
Most internet users don’t seem to pay a lot of attention when they are accessing a URL. A recent test released by Jigsaw, one of Alphabet’s subsidiaries, presents several variants of phishing attempts and asks the participant to decide if the links that are provided are safe or not. The examples offered by the test were inspired by real phishing strategies that are being used by malicious entities from all over the world. In most cases the details are so hard to notice that even those that know a thing or two about computers could be tricked.
The feature is available as an experimental option for those that use Chrome Canary, the beta build of the popular browser.
It is likely that it will be added to the mainstream version in the future.
