- With the advancement of scam technology, it has become increasingly difficult to determine the authenticity based solely on the appearance of the screen.
- In the past, scammers would create fake websites or emails with differences in logo size, layout, wording, etc., which could be identified as fake if observed carefully. However, recent scammers are able to create sophisticated designs and content that are almost identical to real websites and emails.
- As a result, victims are more susceptible to personal information and financial losses, as well as an increased risk of malware infection.
- This article discusses how to distinguish between real and fake online scams.
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With the development of scam technology, it has now become very difficult to determine the authenticity of a scam using only the screen. In the past, parts that were different from the original, such as logo size, layout, text, and domain, were often found in impersonation websites or emails created by scammers, so if you observed carefully, you could identify them as fake. However, recent scammers create sophisticated designs and content that are almost the same as actual websites or emails. Website cloning technology has become so advanced that it is almost impossible to determine authenticity with the naked eye. As a result, victims can more easily lose sensitive personal information and financial losses than before, and the possibility of malware infection has also increased.
In this article, we will look at actual scam cases to see how websites such as online shopping malls and account login pages and e-mails are created to resemble the real thing.
detail
- Online shopping mall
- A type impersonating a real shopping mall
- A type of self-made fake shopping mall
- account login page
- View related articles
Terms
Scam is a criminal act of fraud that involves obtaining money or intellectual property or gaining unauthorized access to assets by deceiving others through illegal and unscrupulous methods. It mainly uses direct channels (phone, text, email, messenger, social media, website, etc.) to get the victim to voluntarily take the actions intended by the scammer (criminal, attacker).
Online shopping mall
A type impersonating a real shopping mall
Some illegal online shopping malls are perfectly replicating the screens of normal online shopping malls. Not only visual elements such as layout, colors, banners, and icons, but also product information are imitated in the same way as normal shopping malls, making it difficult to determine authenticity through the screen alone.
The business information area at the bottom of the website also used the information from a normal shopping mall, and the website domain address was also set to be similar to the normal domain. If a user is aware of the shopping mall brand but does not know the exact domain address, it is not easy to recognize that it is a scam.
| normal online shopping mall | Impersonation online shopping mall (currently unavailable) |
| https://emart.ssg.com | https://emarteshops.com |
| https://www.lotteon.com | https://lotteon-es.com |
| https://www.etlandmall.co.kr | https://et-land.com |
| https://www.hmall.com | https://hmall-online.store |
| https://www.skstoa.com | https://skstoalog.com |
The fraudulent online shopping malls discovered in Korea had the following differences from normal shopping malls.
First, the product price is significantly lower than the general distribution price, stimulating consumers’ desire to purchase.
Second, some basic functions of online shopping malls, such as product search or customer inquiries, do not work properly.
Third, payment methods are limited to personal account deposits, so various payment methods, including credit cards, are not supported.
The screens below are all scam sites that illegally copied domestic online shopping malls. They all impersonated famous domestic online shopping malls and copied their screens without permission.
[Figure 1] Fake shopping mall that illegally copied a famous domestic online shopping mall
[Figure 2] Product prices are abnormally low and only cash payment is possible
[Figure 3] When paying by card, payment is not possible due to lack of stock.
[Figure 4] Cases of fake shopping malls impersonating domestic online shopping malls
A type of self-made fake shopping mall
Fake shopping malls created for the purpose of fraud use various methods to deceive consumers. They increase trust through discount events, purchase reviews, shopping mall introduction pages, etc., and even disguise themselves as normal shopping malls by faithfully responding to customer inquiries. Accordingly, it is difficult for consumers to suspect scams. Self-made fake shopping malls have most of the major functions of a shopping mall, such as providing product information, credit card payments, and customer support. However, even if the consumer completes the order and payment, there is a high possibility that the consumer will not actually receive the product.
Similar to the type that impersonates an actual shopping mall, they tend to set product prices very low. In addition, product images and banners are often taken from online without permission, and the contents of the shopping mall introduction page are also likely to have been copied from other shopping malls. In this way, it is more difficult to determine whether a self-produced fake shopping mall is a scam without verification of reliability through external information such as reputation inquiry.
[Figure 5] Using images from other sites to create a shopping mall banner
[Figure 6] Examples of self-produced fake shopping malls
account login page
The purpose of fake login pages, so-called phishing pages, is to steal the user’s login account. Scammers create manipulated web pages that look almost identical to the real ones and trick users into logging in. In the past, there were many phishing pages that were visually awkward, including layout and logo size, but these days they are very similar to the real thing. It is difficult to know that it is fake without checking the login page source code. When a user enters account information, the expected screen appears, so it is not easy to recognize that the login page is fake and that the user’s information has been maliciously leaked.
[Figure 7] Examples of fake login pages
Phishing emails use methods such as altering the sender’s address or making the content of the email body very similar to a normal email in order to deceive users. The purpose of these attacks is to execute malicious files attached to emails, download malicious files by clicking on external links, or access malicious web pages. In particular, users who frequently communicate via email for work purposes are vulnerable to phishing email attacks. Recently, attackers tend to attempt customized attacks using recipients’ email addresses, rather than indiscriminately sending emails to an unspecified number of people. Sender address falsification can be solved to some extent by introducing an email authentication system such as DMARC, but it has the disadvantage of being complicated to set up and manage.
[Figure 8] Phishing email cases
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