Bitsquatting is a form of
cybersquatting
Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.
The term is derived ...
which relies on
bit-flip errors that occur during the process of making a
DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various informatio ...
request. These bit-flips may occur due to factors such as faulty hardware or
cosmic rays
Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar ...
. When such an error occurs, the user requesting the domain may be directed to a website registered under a
domain name
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...
similar to a legitimate domain, except with one bit flipped in their respective binary representations.
A 2011
Black Hat paper detailed an analysis where eight legitimate domains were targeted with thirty one bitsquat domains. Over the course of about seven months, 52,317 requests were made to the bitsquat domains.
See also
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Typosquatting
Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, a sting site, a cousin domain, or a fake URL, is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into ...
*
Slopsquatting
References
Domain Name System
Types of cyberattacks
Network addressing
URL
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