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Domain name abuse is one of the most dangerous and under-regulated issues in digital business security today. Many of the largest companies in the world still lack basic domain security protocols, making them prime targets for bad actors. An attack on a domain can lead to the redirection of a company's website, domain spoofing, domain and domain name system (DNS) hijacking attacks, phishing attacks, network breaches, and business email compromise (BEC). more
If a national government wants to prevent certain kinds of Internet communication inside its borders, the costs can be extreme and success will never be more than partial. VPN and tunnel technologies will keep improving as long as there is demand, and filtering or blocking out every such technology will be a never-ending game of one-upmanship. Everyone knows and will always know that determined Internet users will find a way to get to what they want, but sometimes the symbolic message is more important than the operational results. more
Efforts to take down websites for copyright infringement are likely to move beyond U.S.-based domain name registries, with ICANN promising to more closely cooperate with global law enforcement agencies and governments. During an open session with the Government Advisory Committee (GAC), the ICANN board confirmed that it will enforce its contracts with registrars more effectively in order to meet expectations from governments and law enforcement authorities. more
In a recent op-ed piece in TheHill.COM, some friends and I described the futility of mandated DNS blocking as contemplated by the SOPA (H.R. 3261) and PIPA (S. 968) bills now working their way through the U.S. Congress: No Internet user is required to use the Domain Name servers provided by their ISP. And if millions of American citizens who for whatever reason want to engage in online piracy can no longer do so because Congress has passed this law and their ISP is now filtering the citizen's DNS lookups... more
During the ICANN meeting in South Africa last week, the impact of new gTLD rights protection mechanisms (RPMS) was the subject of key discussions, and some concerns were voiced regarding trademark owners themselves registering domain names excessively and technically abusing the sunrise period. more
Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world's largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, charging its founder and others with violating piracy laws, the Associated Press reports today. "The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals [SOPA & PIPA] intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs." more
Counterfeiting is big business. A 2021 study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that the international trade in counterfeit and pirated products was worth up to $464 billion in 2019, or around 2.5% of all world trade. A significant proportion of this trade occurs via digital channels, where global annual expenditure on eCommerce is more than $4 trillion. more
With cybercrime on the rise, companies in 2021 have experienced increased ransomware attacks, business email compromise (BEC), phishing attacks, supply chain attacks, and online brand and trademark abuse. While domain cyber risk is rising, the level of action being taken by Forbes Global 2000 companies to improve their domain security posture has remained unchanged, leaving these companies exposed to even more risk. The risk of not addressing your domain security can be catastrophic. more
While Panels under the UDRP and judges under the ACPA draw upon a similar body of principles in determining infringement -- both mechanisms, after all, are crafted to combat cybersquatting -- and though arbitration panels and judges undoubtedly view alleged tortious wrongdoing by abusive registrations of domain names through similar lenses and apply laws that may be outwardly similar, each protective mechanism has developed its own distinct and separate jurisprudence. more
Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when I look back at all of the biggest domain news stories from the last twelve months, and also reflect on my predictions from last year. As expected, GDPR has had a major impact on the ability to access domain ownership information. And we did indeed see a number of M&A transactions over this last year. However, there wasn't a lot of new .Brand activity. This is one prediction where I may have missed the mark... more
In the first article of this two-part blog series, we looked at how frequently domains were used by bad actors for phishing activity across individual top-level domains (TLDs) or domain extensions, using data from CSC's Fraud Protection services, powered by our DomainSecSM platform. In this second article, we analyze multiple datasets to determine the highest-threat TLDs, based on the frequency with which the domains are used egregiously for a range of cybercrimes. more
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a letter today stating "companies and organizations that run the Internet's domain name system shouldn't be in the business of policing the contents of websites, or enforcing laws that can impinge on free speech. more
Domain names are registered by the thousands every day. In July 2021, 236,336 domains were newly registered daily on average across all top-level domains (TLDs). Tens of thousands were also newly expired. Other months could be just as busy. "Newly registered" and "newly expired." Those are two terms I often get questions about. Newly registered domains are domains that someone just reserved, typically through a registrar or web hosting company. Newly expired domains, meanwhile, are those domains that someone had reserved but decided to let go for one reason or another. more
While threat actors can use any domain across thousands of top-level domains (TLDs), they often have favorites. For instance, you may be familiar with Spamhaus's 10 most-abused TLDs for spamming. WhoisXML API researchers recently built on this list by analyzing 40,000 newly registered domains (NRDs) that sported some of the listed unreputable TLDs. We called this study "DNS Abuse Trends: Dissecting the Domains Under the Most-Abused TLDs." more
The New Zealand government has released a revamped three strikes proposal that incorporates full court hearings and the possibility of financial penalties. A prior proposal, which would have resulted in subscriber access being terminated without court oversight, was dropped earlier this year following public protest. more
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