Phishing sites are fraudulent websites that are designed to trick visitors into submitting details such as usernames, passwords, credit card information, or other personal data. They normally impersonate a legitimate organisation, such as a bank, government department, online service provider, or email solution - perhaps even your employer. Any details you enter into phishing sites are collected by the site’s criminal creators.

Phishing sites are often distributed by email and SMS message. These messages can be very convincing, so it is important to exercise caution when following links from suspicious communications. Thankfully, Netcraft is a leading phishing feed provider, and the Netcraft Extension checks all the websites you visit against our blocklist directly.

A fake shop is an online shop that claims to sell products but either does not deliver or delivers counterfeit goods. They are hosted with the objective of capturing the user’s payment information and personal data for future fraud, and in some cases even directly take payment from the user.

Fake shops usually offer designer or luxury brand name goods at heavily discounted prices. They are often visited from search results and promoted on social media platforms.

The Netcraft Extension protects users by warning them when they attempt to visit a known fake shop.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Netcraft has observed a variety of coronavirus-related attacks from scammers keen to take advantage of it.

Coronavirus-related fake shops seek to profit by offering products such as masks, cures and vaccinations, while new phishing sites impersonate government COVID-19 support websites in order to steal personal information. The Netcraft Extension protects users by warning them when they attempt to visit a known coronavirus-related scam.

Criminals hide snippets of malicious code in online shops and other websites that accept payments. If you enter your payment details into a site that has been compromised with a skimmer, they get sent to the criminal as well as the website itself. JavaScript skimmers often go undetected by online shops and their visitors for long periods of time, as there is normally no change to the content or performance of the website.

The Netcraft Extension protects users by warning them when they attempt to visit a website that is known to be compromised with a JavaScript skimmer, and blocking any requests to URLs known to be used for skimming. It also features credential leak detection, which blocks suspicious requests containing a credit card number.

Some websites use your computer’s processing power to generate digital currency without your consent, using your electricity and slowing down your device while you are on the site. Miners can greatly reduce the battery life of portable devices while running. They can also cause increased fan noise, and over long periods of time may even reduce the lifespan of the device.

The miner may be an intentional feature of the website or it may be injected by criminals. The Netcraft Extension protects users by blocking known cryptocurrency mining scripts from running.

This category covers a variety of other forms of criminal-planted code. Many of these scripts redirect you to advertisements or try to trick you into installing malware. Others use the compromised site for malicious search engine optimisation.

The Netcraft Extension blocks a wide variety of malicious scripts and warns users when a website attempts to load a blocked script.

XSS attacks are malicious scripts hidden in links to legitimate websites. When the link is followed, the code runs on the destination web page. XSS attacks can be used to hijack your session, giving the attacker access to your account on a website. They can also make unauthorised actions on your behalf, steal your information, and much more.

The Netcraft Extension has built-in protection against XSS which is capable of detecting and blocking attacks.