A new website-checking tool has been launched to help users confirm whether a site is legitimate before they visit. Internet safety group Get Safe Online has worked with fraud prevention service Cifas to create the tool, which enables users to enter the address of any website to check if it’s a real website or a fake set up by criminals.
The tool is hosted on the Get Safe Online website and uses an algorithm based on more than 40 data sources and malicious website reports from law enforcement agencies, regulators and consumer brands to identify and vet the sites entered by users, providing a trust score for the website.
Fake or malicious websites, often impersonating genuine sites, are used by scammers to lure people into sharing personal and financial details which can then be used to facilitate identity theft.
