What is gmsil.com and is it a legitimate domain or a spam trap?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares they've sent 10K emails to gmsil.com recently, likely typos, with no hard bounces, emphasizing the need for rigor in address collection and targeting.
Email marketer from Quora mentions that, although gmsil.com is a registered domain, its purpose is questionable. It's likely used for malicious activities such as spamming or phishing, due to its similarity to Gmail.
Email marketer from Web Hosting Company suggests that registering common typos of your domain name can protect your online presence and prevent malicious actors from using them for harm. It can also prevent email-based attacks.
Email marketer from StackExchange suggests that gmsil.com is used to collect email addresses from users who made a typo when signing up for services or newsletters. These addresses are then used to send spam or phishing emails.
Email marketer from Cyber Security Blog explains that typosquatting poses risks because it can be used to spread malware, conduct phishing attacks, or even tarnish the reputation of the brand being imitated. It can potentially compromise sensitive data.
Email marketer from ICANN explains that typosquatting is when someone registers domain names with common misspellings of existing websites, and this is used to confuse users.
Email marketer from Personal Security Blog explains that domains like gmsil.com can be part of a data harvesting operation, gathering mistyped email addresses for later exploitation.
Email marketer from Namecheap Community Forums shares that gmsil.com could be a common typo for gmail.com, often used to harvest misspelled email addresses.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that domains like gmsil.com are likely typosquatting domains. It could be a source of spam and should be treated with caution.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that typosquatting can be used as a spam tactic, where a domain name close to a well-known one (like gmail.com) is used to collect mistyped email addresses for malicious purposes.
Expert from Email Geeks suspects that most of the mailstream to gmsil.com goes to /dev/null.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that gmsil.com is likely a gmail typo trap.
Expert from Word to the Wise answers questions about whether typo domains should be suppressed, explaining they may have implications on deliverability but are not necessarily spam traps and suppressing them may hide poor data collection practices.
Expert from Email Geeks states that he doubts gmsil.com is a spam trap.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that gmsil.com is hosted by appriver.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from RFC Editor explains that invalid email addresses (potentially captured through typosquatting) are often discarded or used to identify senders employing poor list hygiene practices. It can be used in the detection of spam.
Documentation from Spamhaus shares information on the definition of spam traps and the different types, which could include typo domains.
Documentation from NIST indicates how typo-squatted domains are often used in phishing attacks where the user believes they're interacting with a legitimate organisation.
Documentation from MxToolbox highlights that one of the potential uses for domains such as 'gmsil.com' is to act as a honeypot for misspelled addresses.
Documentation from IETF specifies email address syntax, noting that slight deviations (like 'gmsil' instead of 'gmail') can lead to undeliverable mail or exploitation by malicious actors. Addresses that follow valid syntax but contain errors can be used for spam.