Cloned Technical Websites

I received an email from the Element 14 forum website about a cloned website so I thought I'd post it here for everyones benefit.

Community Members,

A website has cloned element14.com. It looks completely legitimate - except the URL displayed is not element14.com. Upon investigation, it appears this group has also cloned other popular technical sites.

We're not sure why they're doing this - it could be to obtain personal information or to distribute malware or some other dubious activity. This fake site is currently down, but we are notifying our customers and element14 Community members to be careful.

How can you tell if you're on the real element14?

The easiest way is to look at the URL that appears in your browser. It should start with www.element14.com.

The counterfeit site is using a URL like this: http://element14.(SomethingElse).com. For the Internet-savvy reading this, you'll recognize this is actually a sub domain of (SomethingElse).com. Don't be fooled by the fact that it starts out with "element14."

If you have received a message recently asking you to login to the element14 site, or have visited a site like this for any reason, please take appropriate precautions to reset your password by visiting the element14.com and updating your profile. You may also wish to update your computer's virus definitions (e.g. McAfee, Symantec, etc.) to ensure that there's no malware or viruses on your systems as a result of visiting that site. We will never send email asking you for your username or password. If you receive any suspicious email, please notify us by posting it in our Feedback and Support area.

Thank you!

The element14 Community Team