- Decodo reports 68% increase in digital squatting scams over five years
- Techniques include typosquatting, combosquatting, TLD squatting, and homograph attacks, tricking users into sharing their credentials or payments.
- WIPO recorded 6,200 domain disputes in 2025, an unprecedented figure; Decodo urges brands to register domains beyond .com to protect them
Digital squatting is becoming increasingly popular among scammers, ruining businesses and their reputations at an unprecedented rate.
This is according to a new report from Decodo, which indicates that there has been a 68% increase in these cases in half a decade.
In a new press release shared with TechRadar Pro, Decodo said that, according to data from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), there were 6,200 domain name disputes in 2025, the highest ever in the organization’s history, and a 68% increase since 2020.
Fraudulent purchases
Digital squatting is a type of scam in which hackers register domains imitating established brands. This can include typosquatting (registering domains that are a typo of a legitimate company, e.g. “Microsfot” instead of “Microsoft”), combosquatting (adding keywords to brand names, such as “microsoft-login” or “ebay-discounts”), Top-Level Domain squatting (registering a new domain for an established brand, e.g. “microsoft.ai” when the company is on the .com domain) and homograph attacks (using visually similar characters, e.g. “rnicrosoft” instead of “microsoft”).
Cybercriminals can do all kinds of malicious things when they trick people into visiting their websites. They can trick them into trying to log in, stealing credentials for important services. They can even make them “buy” something, as was the case with Decodo.
Using its former brand, Smartproxy, hackers registered fraudulent domains and tricked people into purchasing services they never received.
“We have spent years earning the trust of our customers through reliable service and ethical practices,” said Vytautas Savickas, CEO of Decodo. “Identity thieves don’t just steal money. They provide shoddy services, far below what real businesses offer. Each fake site makes it harder for honest businesses to gain trust and for customers to know who to trust.”
Decodo says prevention is the most cost-effective approach to solving the problem, urging organizations to register domains beyond their primary .com address.
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