Homoglyph Detector

Attackers create fake URLs that look identical to real ones (phishing), impersonate trusted usernames, bypass content filters and blocklists, create deceptive email addresses, and evade plagiarism detection. The visual deception exploits human inability to distinguish similar-looking characters.

Cyrillic (Russian) and Greek alphabets contain many Latin lookalikes. Cyrillic has а, с, е, о, р, х, у that mirror a, c, e, o, p, x, y. Greek has Α, Β, Ε, Η, Ι, Κ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Ρ, Τ, Χ, Ζ matching Latin capitals.

Use our detector on suspicious URLs and usernames. Implement IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) warnings in browsers. Normalize user input in applications. Block mixed-script content where appropriate. Educate users about visual deception risks.

No, many arise from legitimate multilingual text. A Russian user typing their name uses Cyrillic naturally. Problems occur when homoglyphs appear unexpectedly in supposedly single-script content or in security-sensitive contexts like URLs and credentials.

Normalization replaces homoglyphs with their most common equivalent, typically Latin characters. This creates consistent, predictable text. However, it destroys legitimate non-Latin content, so use carefully--normalize for security checks, not for storing multilingual content.