200+ fake iPhone sites appear within 24 hours
Fraudsters register hundreds of fake Apple domains every time a new iPhone launches
More than 200 fake iPhone websites can appear within 24 hours of an Apple launch, and this year's foldable debut gave scammers their biggest target yet.
Security researchers tracking domain registrations found a familiar spike the moment Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo and two new iPhone 18 Pro models this week.
According to the WhoisXML API, Alexandre François, domain names referencing new iPhone models typically sit at zero or one per day, until keynote day, when registrations jump past 200 within hours.
The fraudsters create web pages using terms such as "Apple" and "iPhone 18" before the press conference and develop them into complete shopfronts after the technical specifications for the new iPhone are released by Apple. François states that the technical specifications increase the credibility of these fraudulent websites instantly.
The site found by François already had a listing for the "iPhone Pro Max" available in three colours with all-day battery life.
Genuine iPhone 18 Pro pricing starts at £1,199, with the Pro Max at £1,299, so any site offering either for noticeably less is worth treating with suspicion.
Scam pages often add countdown deadlines to pressure quick decisions, and many insist on payment via bank transfer or cryptocurrency specifically because those methods skip the fraud protections that come with card payments.
There's also a simple timing check: Only the iPhone Duo and the 18 Pro variants are available at the moment. Any website selling a standard iPhone 18 or taking “deposits” on its purchase is a scammer per definition.
Apple doesn’t conduct any lotteries or recruit testers for non-existent products, as these websites may claim.
Despite the fact that a number of scam sites are detected as dangerous by more than ten security engines, there are none of these on the browser blacklists that can automatically block malicious web pages.
