BizTech Law Blog

“Doppelganger Domain” Names Could be Stealing Your E-mails

Are your e-mails going astray? Do customers claim they have sent an e-mail that you didn’t receive or can’t find

It could be that they were never sent or it could be that a “doppelganger domain” name has been set up to steal e-mails that are supposed to be going to you or other employees of your business.

According to a recent article, anyone who wants to intercept e-mails can register a “doppelganger domain” and configure an e-mail server to be the catchall to receive correspondence addressed to anyone at that business. For example, if a customer sends an e-mail to jsmith@smithwarren.com instead of jsmith@smithwaren.com it will not be received by the business, but by the person owning the “doppelganger domain” smithwarren.com.

This means that if your business name is susceptible to misspellings, add intercepted e-mails to the list of things you need to be protecting against.

Doppelganger is German; doppel means double and ganger is doer. Definition: double, alter ego, person who has the same name as another Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Please contact a Foster Swift IT attorney if you have questions on this issue.

Categories: Domain Name Registration