Exposing the dark side of subdomain registries

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:32:27 +0100

It sounds like the title to a Star Wars parody made by a bunch of college kids but it's actually the Anti Phishing Working Group's latest report.

And a fascinating read it is too. I'm sure most people don't know what a subdomain registry is – I certainly didn't before reading the APWG report. We're not talking about actual registries as we understand it in "standard" domain name terms. These are in fact providers who offer free hosting services which include providing a free subdomain with one the provider's registered domain names. One example would be MYDOMAIN.FREEHOST.COM.

Because these accounts are often free to set-up and can be accessed without users being asked to provide any real information about themselves (not even payment information, the accounts being free), they provide a useful safe haven for phishers.

APWG provides suggestions on what subdomain registries, registrars and ICANN can try and do about this. It's certainly a topic worth learning about and the APWG report is a great way to do that.

If you're interested, download the 11 page report here.

Ill winds

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:02:42 +0200

You sometimes have to wonder about the world we live in. As Gustav prepares to pummel the very places that Katrina wrecked only 3 years ago, scam artists are already looking for ways to profit from other people's hardships.

Having noticed several new domain name registrations centered around hurricane Gustav in the past few days, the American authorities are warning people against potential email scams or phishing attacks.

Louisiana's Attorney General has even issued an advisory against a spam campaign currently ongoing and asking people to confirm their account information in preparation for Gustav.

The silver lining here is that domain names and the Internet are now well enough integrated into our daily lives that hopefully people can spot a scam of this kind a mile away and not get duped.

Stephane Van Gelder - Scams

Exposing the dark side of subdomain registries

Ill winds