Cybercriminals are becoming a major force in the domain-name market, driving an estimated one-fifth of new gTLD registrations in 2025 and exposing how commercial incentives, weak enforcement, and scale continue to fuel online abuse.
Domains and DNS underpin modern business operations, yet security gaps remain widespread. CSC's latest research shows why stronger domain protections are essential to resilience, helping companies reduce disruption, safeguard trust, and maintain continuity when attacks strike.
New data on DNS abuse reveals most malicious domains remain active beyond 24 hours, while a handful of registrars host the bulk of infrastructure, leaving India's population of first-generation internet users uniquely exposed to fraud.
As AI agents automate phishing, impersonation and domain abuse at machine scale, the Brand Registry Group argues that dotBrand domains are evolving from marketing assets into trust infrastructure underpinning cybersecurity, identity and interactions across the internet.
As cross-border cyber enforcement falters, critics argue Article 19's DNS abuse framework prioritizes procedural purity over user protection, leaving courts too slow to counter AI-driven phishing, rapid-flux domains, and increasingly automated online threats.
Fake recruitment websites exploiting India's young job seekers are proliferating, exposing millions to identity theft, financial fraud and malware while regulators, registrars and digital literacy programs struggle to keep pace with a growing labor market.
Africa's digital boom is accelerating, but safeguards lag. Governments and firms deploy systems at speed, while weak enforcement and fragmented oversight leave economies exposed to mounting cyber risks.
Third-party domains exploiting brand names are proliferating, with 88% of homoglyphs externally owned. Many remain dormant yet email-enabled, creating scalable phishing risks as attackers increasingly target trust rather than infrastructure.
Africa's cybersecurity failures stem less from sophisticated hackers than from insecure system design, weak governance and limited skills, leaving institutions exposed and shifting the challenge from external threats to internal accountability and resilience.
Africa's looming AI rules expose a deeper problem: foreign-controlled infrastructure, weak enforcement capacity and externally governed data flows are eroding digital sovereignty, leaving states unable to regulate, protect citizens or meet global obligations.