Website spoofing is the act of creating a website, as a hoax, with the intention of misleading readers that the website has been created by a different person or organisation. Normally, the website will adopt the design of the target website and sometimes has a similar URL.^[1]

Another technique is to use a 'cloaked' URL. By using domain forwarding, or inserting control characters, the URL can appear to be genuine while concealing the address of the actual website.^[2]

The objective may be fraudulent, often associated with phishing or e-mail spoofing, or to criticize or make fun of the person or body whose website the spoofed site purports to represent.^[3]

As an example of the use of this technique to parody an organization, in November 2006 two spoof websites were produced claiming that Microsoft had bought Firefox and released Microsoft Firefox 2007.^[4]

[edit] See also

• email spoofing

[edit] References

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