In this Journal Entry, I will examine three fake websites and compare them to real ones, highlighting the critical characteristics distinguishing legitimate sites from fake ones.

Let us consider a Fake Website: "https://bαnkofamerica.com". At first glance, this URL appears to be legitimate. However, upon closer inspection, a red flag emerges. The URL contains misspelled words (typo); you will find that the character after b is the symbol alfa (α), not the letter a as it should be. In contrast, "https://www.bankofamerica.com" is a well-established URL with no typos.

I found a fake website with an unexpected domain extension (.lat) at "https://bnefliciogali.lat/ga2/index.php", which I discovered on PhishTank.org ("https://phishtank.org/phish_detail.php?phish_id=8800954"). The unusual domain extension is a red flag, and a DNS lookup was empty, confirming that the website was fake. Genuine websites usually have common domain extensions like .com, .org, .net, .edu, or .gov.

"https://lssc.ltd" looks legit but is still raising some questions. The top-level domain is uncommon, and many online tools for website analysis show a deficient trust score, indicating that this website is not likely legit and safe.