How to filter out Punycodes with DrayTek Routers
In this video we show how to block LAN devices from visiting Punycode URLs using DrayTek routers. Punycodes use non-Latin characters instead of ASCII to trick users into thinking they're going to one website when they're actually being redirected to somewhere else. This can be used by hackers to create a fake website to fool people into giving up personal information (phishing), or other nefarious purposes. Thankfully it is easy to configure a DrayTek router to block them for all users.
A safe example you can try is аррӏе.com. If you copy and paste this into Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, it will look fine at first, but once you proceed it will then transform in the address bar to https://www.xn--80ak6aa92e.com/ (not the actual apple.com) with a message from Xudong Zheng and a link to his blog post about punycodes.
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