The Perils of Typos

Via the BBC:  Bad spelling opens up security loophole

A missing dot in an email address might mean messages end up in the hands of cyber thieves, researchers have found.

By creating web domains that contained commonly mistyped names, the investigators received emails that would otherwise not be delivered.

FILED UNDER: Science & Technology,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. jd says:

    Who types email addresses these days? Is cut-n-paste a lost art?

  2. matt says:

    This is an old trick. They do the same thing with website names and such.