A Case of Identity: Detection of Suspicious IDN Homograph Domains Using Active DNS Measurements Ramin Yazdani Olivier van der Toorn Anna Sperotto University of Twente University of Twente University of Twente Enschede, The Netherlands Enschede, The Netherlands Enschede, The Netherlands
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract—The possibility to include Unicode characters in problem in the case of Unicode – ASCII homograph domain names allows users to deal with domains in their domains. We propose a low-cost method for proactively regional languages. This is done by introducing Internation- detecting suspicious IDNs. Since our proactive approach alized Domain Names (IDN). However, the visual similarity is based not on use, but on characteristics of the domain between different Unicode characters - called homoglyphs name itself and its associated DNS records, we are able to - is a potential security threat, as visually similar domain provide an early alert for both domain owners as well as names are often used in phishing attacks. Timely detection security researchers to further investigate these domains of suspicious homograph domain names is an important before they are involved in malicious activities. The main step towards preventing sophisticated attacks, since this can contributions of this paper are that we: prevent unaware users to access those homograph domains • propose an improved Unicode Confusion table able that actually carry malicious content. We therefore propose to detect 2.97 times homograph domains compared a structured approach to identify suspicious homograph to the state-of-the-art confusion tables; domain names based not on use, but on characteristics • combine active DNS measurements and Unicode of the domain name itself and its associated DNS records.