Systems and methods for Unicode homograph anti-spoofing using optical character recognition
Systems and methods for Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) based anti-spoofing for Unicode homograph. The method comprises: performing operations by a computing device to make an OCR identification on an original electronic address so as to obtain an OCR electronic address; encoding (a) the original electronic address to obtain an encoded access address and (b) the OCR electronic address to obtain an encoded OCR electronic address; comparing the encoded access address to the encoded OCR electronic address; and determining if a Unicode homograph spoofing situation exists based on results of the comparing.
1. A method for Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) based anti-spoofing for Unicode homograph, comprising:
performing operations by a computing device to make an OCR identification on an original electronic address so as to obtain an OCR electronic address;
encoding (a) the original electronic address to obtain an encoded access address and (b) the OCR electronic address to obtain an encoded OCR electronic address;
comparing the encoded access address to the encoded OCR electronic address; and
determining if a Unicode homograph spoofing situation exists based on results of the comparing.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the original electronic address comprises an address that is allowed to contain at least one Unicode letter.
3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the address comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”).
4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the address comprises an email address.
5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the OCR identification is made by:
capturing a screenshot including an image of data displayed on a display screen of the computing device; and
processing the image to identify characters defining the original electronic address.
6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the encoding is performed in accordance with an encoding technique that generates a string in pure ASCII form.
7. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the encoding technique comprises Unicode encoding.
8. The method according to claim 6 , wherein the encoding technique comprises Punycode encoding.
9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a determination is made that a Unicode homograph spoofing situation exist when the encoded access address is not equal to or does not match the encoded OCR electronic address.
10. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising providing a warning or notification to the user of the computing device when a determination is made that the Unicode homograph spoofing situation exists.
11. A system, comprising:
a processor;
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising programming instructions that are configured to cause the processor to implement a method for Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) based anti-spoofing for Unicode homograph, wherein the programming instructions comprise instructions to:
make an OCR identification on an original electronic address so as to obtain an OCR electronic address;
encode (a) the original electronic address to obtain an encoded access address and (b) the OCR electronic address to obtain an encoded OCR electronic address;
compare the encoded access address to the encoded OCR electronic address; and
determine if a Unicode homograph spoofing situation exists based on results of the comparing.
12. The system according to claim 11 , wherein the original electronic address comprises an address that is allowed to contain at least one Unicode letter.
13. The system according to claim 12 , wherein the address comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”).
14. The system according to claim 12 , wherein the address comprises an email address.
15. The system according to claim 11 , wherein the OCR identification is made by:
capturing a screenshot including an image of data displayed on a display screen of the computing device; and
processing the image to identify characters defining the original electronic address.
16. The system according to claim 11 , wherein the encoding is performed in accordance with an encoding technique that generates a string in pure ASCII form.
17. The system according to claim 16 , wherein the encoding technique comprises Unicode encoding.
18. The system according to claim 16 , wherein the encoding technique comprises Punycode encoding.
19. The system according to claim 11 , wherein a determination is made that a Unicode homograph spoofing situation exist when the encoded access address is not equal to or does not match the encoded OCR electronic address.
20. The system according to claim 11 , wherein the programming instructions further comprise instructions to provide a warning or notification to the user of the computing device when a determination is made that the Unicode homograph spoofing situation exists.