What Is an IDN Homograph Attack? | Web Application Security 101

This web application security tutorial will walk you through an IDN Homograph attack.

An IDN homograph attack is an attack mostly targeting web application security where a nefarious party deceives a user in regards to what application is in use by exploiting the fact that many different characters in different alphabets look alike. For example, an attacker could switch a Latin lowercase letter a with a Cyrillic lowercase letter a that looks identical, combine the attack vector with social engineering or a different attack, and use it in a web application security attack against an unsuspecting victim.

When such an attack is in use, the content of the domain is a dead giveaway - by looking at the domain name, one can easily identify whether it's fake and was it a result of web application penetration testing or not.

Back in the day, there was an exploit in Firefox that let attackers obfuscate that without Firefox identifying characters from a different alphabet and displaying them in the same way, but that has since been fixed.

Make sure you don't fall victim to such attacks - use a web application firewall where necessary, sanitize your input fields, and adhere to OWASP Top 10 and other security guidelines. Then, if you've enjoyed this web application security tutorial, subscribe to this channel to learn more about web application security, and until next time.

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