The significant increase in the number of new Internet addresses available has become a prime target for cybercriminals looking to lure users intro cybercrime traps, Reuters reported yesterday (Sept. 1).
According to a report from enterprise security company Blue Coat, criminals use new domain names in the links they send to users in hopes they will download malware, provide personal data or spam others. After analyzing tens of millions of websites, Blue Coat found the most treacherous top-level domains (TLDs) were .zip, .review and .country. Domains like .london, .tel and .church were considered to be among the safest.
“Ideally, TLDs would all be run by security-conscious operators who diligently review new domain name applications, and reject those that don’t meet a stringent set of criteria,” Blue Coat’s study said, as reported by Reuters.
“The reality for many of these new neighborhoods is that this is not happening.”
An initiative was recently launched by ICANN, the governing body of Web identifiers, which aims to expand the number of TLDs in an effort to stimulate both competition and choice online, but the proliferation of Web domains continues to be exploited by cybercriminals.
Originally the only TLDs available, not including country codes, were: .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .net and .org, Reuters confirmed, but the actual size of the market is difficult to determine since many of the sales are done privately.
Today, organizations seeking to sell a new TLD are required to pay ICANN a $185,000 fee in order to prove they are qualified to run the registry.
Popular domains can sell for millions of dollars, while the more obscure ones may be sold for only a dollar or less.
Even eCommerce giant Amazon found itself in a bidding war for Internet domains late last year, eventually winning the right to create domain names ending in .Pay.
The company applied for the .Pay TLD rights back in 2012 and later became the last bidder standing after Swiss company Dotpay SA dropped out just days before .Pay was scheduled to be auctioned off.
Amazon won the ability to proceed through a now-mostly-bureaucratic process of officially being assigned rights to the TLD, including signing a contract that required the .Pay domains to go live within a year of the domains being won.
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