Suspected phishing site | Cloudflare (2024)

FAQs

What is a suspected phishing site? ›

A phishing website (spoofed website) is a common deception tactic threat actors utilize to steal real login credentials to legitimate websites. This operation, commonly called credential theft, involves sending victims an email that spoofs a trusted brand, trying to trick them into clicking on a malicious link.

Clicking on a phishing link may instantly transmit your location and device information to malicious actors. With this information in their hands, they may be able to target you with location-based scams or commit other types of cybercrimes (like financial fraud or identity theft).

It means that Google Safe Browsing has reviewed your website and found potentially malicious content on it. In order to protect you and your visitors, they show this warning message instead of your website.

If your site has been infected, it is generally because some vulnerability has allowed a hacker to take control of your site. The hacker may change the content of the site (for example, to add spam), or add additional pages to the site, usually with the intent of phishing.

Similar to many other identity theft cases, phishing doesn't have to be successful and result in loss of information in order to be formally criminalized. Conviction can still occur if the hacker sends an e-mail or creates a website with the intention of stealing information.

Clicking on a phishing link can sometimes set off a malware download that contains malicious files capable of harvesting information stored on your device. Hackers can steal credit card numbers, bank account numbers, usernames and passwords, and other PII.

Phishing can occur in many forms whether it's through email, SMS, or accessing a certain website. These campaigns can obtain tons of information on their victims. From names, addresses, social security numbers, phone numbers, credit card information, etc.

We have a detailed guide on scanning and removing malware from your Android phone. However, the safest method is to perform a factory reset, so back up your phone and then reset it.

Get warnings about unsafe sites

Phishing and malware detection is turned on by default in Chrome. When you encounter phishing, malware, unwanted software, or social engineering sites, you may get a red warning that says "Dangerous site." If you see this warning, we recommend that you don't visit the site.

What are the 7 red flags of phishing? ›

Look closely at the URL in the address bar of your browser. Phishing URLs often mimic legitimate ones but may have slight misspellings, extra characters, or an altered domain like . net instead of .com.

To find out if a link is safe, just copy/paste the URL into the search box and hit Enter. Google Safe Browsing's URL checker will test the link and report back on the site's legitimacy and reputation in just seconds. It's that easy to use Google's URL scanner.