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Redirected from: phony website

Definition: fake website


A website that is not a legitimate venue. For example, the site may be designed to entice the visitor into revealing sensitive information or to download some form of malware or to purchase products that never arrive.

Fake Sites Can Look Real
It is very easy to copy pages from a legitimate website and turn them into a bogus site because a Copy Web Page function is inherent in every Web browser. Anyone can also register a slightly modified URL so that typos cause a landing on the fake site. For example, "micrsoft.com" is an easy typo for the Microsoft website, and Microsoft has, in fact, registered several typo URLs (see URL hijacking). See fake news, deepfake, fake fans and scareware.