Weaponizing Unicode Homographs Beyond IDNs

Architecture and Background

Most people are familiar with homograph attacks due to phishing or other attack campaigns using Internationalized Domain Names with look-alike characters.

Vulnerability Analysis

But homograph attacks exist against wide variety of systems that have gotten far less attention.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

This talk discusses the use of homographs to attack machine learning systems, to submit malicious software patches, and to craft cryptographic canary traps and leak repudiation mechanisms.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

It then introduces a generalized defense strategy that should work against homograph attacks in any context.