Telegram lookalike domains
Greyphish has recorded 524 domains that resemble Telegram since February 2026, 87 of them in the last 90 days. Most of them (81%) are combosquats: Telegram spelled correctly with a word added, most often “web”, “app”, “online”. No single ending dominates: they are spread over 72, led by .org and .com. The pace has picked up, with 44 in the last 30 days against 21 in the 30 before. The busiest week began 20 April 2026, with 28 new ones. 57 certificates for unregistered .ph, .com.ph, .net.ph names (registry wildcard) are excluded: the registry answers for any name under those endings, so nobody had to register one to get a certificate for it.
Data as of . Public sources only.
What kind of lookalikes
One or two keystrokes away from the real name: a letter dropped, doubled, swapped or mistyped. More
A letter swapped for one that looks the same, in ASCII or in Unicode written as punycode. More
Words most often added to the name in the last 90 days: web (21), app (16), online (4), service (4), account (3), direct (3).
Lookalikes per week
Show as a table
| Week of | Typo | Combo | Homoglyph | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-20 | 15 | 12 | 1 | 28 |
| 2026-04-27 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 16 |
| 2026-05-04 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| 2026-05-11 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2026-05-18 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 9 |
| 2026-05-25 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 6 |
| 2026-06-01 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| 2026-06-08 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2026-06-15 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 10 |
| 2026-06-22 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| 2026-06-29 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2026-07-06 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 |
| 2026-07-13 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2026-07-20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026-07-27 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 9 |
| 2026-08-03 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2026-08-10 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2026-08-17 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 6 |
| 2026-08-24 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2026-08-31 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2026-09-07 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2026-09-14 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 11 |
| 2026-09-21 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| 2026-09-28 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 9 |
| 2026-10-05 | 1 | 13 | 0 | 14 |
| 2026-10-12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Endings
The 8 most used of the 72 top-level domains these lookalikes sit under.
| Ending | Lookalikes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| .org | 131 | 25.0% |
| .com | 76 | 14.5% |
| .ru | 33 | 6.3% |
| .com.cn | 24 | 4.6% |
| .net | 18 | 3.4% |
| .hl.cn | 15 | 2.9% |
| .online | 13 | 2.5% |
| .top | 12 | 2.3% |
Where they are registered
For the 212 with a registrar in WHOIS (40% of all). Brand-protection registrars mostly hold defensive registrations made by brands themselves, so a domain there is more likely the brand's own than an imitation.
| Registrar | Lookalikes | Share | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gname | 29 | 13.7% | Retail |
| Dynadot | 27 | 12.7% | Retail |
| NameSilo | 22 | 10.4% | Retail |
| PDR | 16 | 7.5% | Retail |
| GoDaddy | 13 | 6.1% | Retail |
| Key-Systems | 9 | 4.3% | Retail |
| Center of Ukrainian Internet Names (UKRNAMES) | 7 | 3.3% | Retail |
| Cloudflare | 6 | 2.8% | Retail |
What the live ones do
77 of these lookalikes were registered and checked for a website and mail: 34 (44%) served a website and 14 (18%) publish MX records, so they can receive email. Checks run on the higher-severity matches that resolve, not on every lookalike.
Google Web Risk lists 3 of the 20 live ones checked against it (15%).
21 were tracked while live and 1 has since gone down. See what to do about a lookalike.
Recent examples
The 10 most recent, written with [.] so they cannot be clicked. The brand's own domains and registrations held by brand-protection registrars are left out. A lookalike resembles Telegram; it is not necessarily malicious, and none of these is a claim about who registered it or why.
telegramaccounts[.]comCombo, Oct 11No site or mail when checkedtelegram-web[.]cfdCombo, Oct 10No site or mail when checkedapp-telegram[.]shopCombo, Oct 10No site or mail when checkedtelegramdirectory[.]techCombo, Oct 9Serves a websitetelegramwebauth[.]orgCombo, Oct 9Serves a websitegettelegram[.]netCombo, Oct 8No site or mail when checkedtelegramwebapplication[.]comCombo, Oct 6Serves a websitetelegramweb[.]techCombo, Oct 6Not checkedtelegramdirectory[.]orgCombo, Oct 6Serves a websiteMX recordstelegramwallet[.]siCombo, Oct 6No site or mail when checked
Or watch it free: Greyphish tells you when a new lookalike of your domain is registered or goes live.
Further reading
More in social media
Greyphish is not affiliated with Telegram. Domains listed resemble Telegram by spelling; registration alone says nothing about intent. Counts cover domains first seen in public Certificate Transparency logs and ICANN zone files; domains that Greyphish customers watch are excluded.