A Case of Identity: Detection of Suspicious IDN Homograph Domains Using Active DNS Measurements
The possibility to include Unicode characters in domain names allows users to deal with domains in their regional languages. This is done by introducing Internationalized Domain Names (IDN). However, the visual similarity between different Unicode characters - called homoglyphs - is a potential security threat, as visually similar domain names are often used in phishing attacks. Timely detection of suspicious homograph domain names is an important step towards preventing sophisticated attacks, since this can prevent unaware users to access those homograph domains that actually carry malicious content.