My name is AJ, and I work as a Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst. In other words, I work in a specialized part of cybersecurity. My job is to safeguard my employer’s network, which means I have to continually educate myself not only on technological vulnerabilities and exploits, but the ones that target my fellow humans. Thus, I know much more about scams and phishing than the average person.
This domain name is a typosquat I ran across as part of my duties. (A typosquat is a domain registered to take advantage of someone fat-fingering the address they intended to go to, often used for malicious purposes.) I think the user in question was attempting to go to either a family’s personal site or more likely a site run by the State of California. I wanted to turn a domain name that had once been used to potentially hurt others into one that could be used to help others.
What I love about my field is the chance to teach people how to spot these bad actors and how to protect themselves. Teaching people the tips and tricks ensures that I can spend more time shoring up technological weaknesses for my employer, and it feels good to help people in general keep their hard-earned money out of the hands of criminals. I hope that you will find it useful.