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It's not as complex as a clever URL trick: your would-be scammer is incompetent. Technically, this is a malformed URL and shouldn't parse at all. The relevant spec is RFC 3986 §3 — for this purpose...
Answer
#1: Initial revision
by
ArtOfCode
·
2023-10-31T18:36:21Z (about 1 year ago)
It's not as complex as a clever URL trick: your would-be scammer is incompetent. Technically, this is a malformed URL and shouldn't parse at all. The relevant spec is [RFC 3986 §3](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3986#autoid-17) — for this purpose, there must be a literal `://` between the scheme and authority (domain). However, entering this into a browser will actually take you to the URL as if there was a double slash there. This is a browser feature, intended to correct for user error in typing URLs into the address bar. Likewise, the port number isn't relevant to the scam here: it just happens to be the port that the scammer is hosting this website on. The query string is probably relevant to the scam, but only in that it sounds like it directs you to the "right" place. My best guess here is that following the link would take you to a phishing scam intended to get you to provide your credentials for some popular service or other.