Featured Blogs

78% of Cybersecurity Professionals Expect an Increase in DNS Threats, Yet Have Reservations

A recent survey conducted by the Neustar International Security Council confirmed the heightened interests on domain name system (DNS) security. The survey reveals that over three-quarters of cybersecurity professionals anticipate increases in DNS attacks, especially with more people shopping online amid the pandemic. Yet, close to 30% have reservations about their ability to respond to these attacks. more

How AI Is Boosting Domain Registrar Efficiency, Empowering Registries and Transforming User Experience

AI is bringing changes to the domain registration process by enhancing user experience, improving registrar operations, and empowering registries. In recent years, AI has entered the industry via the huge growth of new website builders. Today, new developments in the field offer an opportunity to align the interests of all stakeholders, from end user to registry. more

New gTLD Abuse Trends Beginning to Emerge

With just over 2.4 million New gTLDs registered, abuse trends are beginning to emerge. Earlier this month we conducted a review of the top 100 most highly-trafficked Web property names across the top 5 most popular new gTLD registries. It is apparent that the abuse we had expected has occurred -- just not where we had anticipated. more

Visit of US House Speaker Pelosi to Taiwan Has Little Impact on Network Infrastructures

I'm writing this from Taipei, where I have lived in peace for over 10 years. Sadly I learned that during this week, intermediate-range ballistic missiles (operated by China) have flown far above the capital of Taiwan and that five of them have landed in the waters of Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This provocative live-firing drill came as a direct response from China following Pelosi's visit. more

What Are the Connected Assets of Confirmed Fake FBI Domains?

Two months ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alerted the public to a list of domains that could easily be mistaken to be part of its network. The list of artifacts contained a total of 92 domain names, 78 of which led to potentially malicious websites, while the remaining 14 have yet to be activated or are no longer active as of 23 November 2020. more

Cybersecurity Tech Accord: 98% of Registrar Whois Requests Unrequited

When a brand goes so far as to ask a domain name registrar for Whois (the registration contact details) of a potentially abusive domain name, there's likely a lot at stake. Most often, the request is prompted by consumer safety concerns, such as the risk to consumers posed by a malicious site. Other times, the demand has a simple goal: to have a dialog with the registrant about the use of trademarks or other intellectual property in order to avoid extreme action. more

New CSC Research Finds Significant Lack of Redundancy for Enterprise DNS

As outlined in CSC's recent 2020 Domain Security Report: Forbes Global 2000 Companies, cybercriminals are disrupting organizations by attacking the protocol responsible for their online presence -- their domain name system (DNS). When a DNS is overwhelmed with traffic due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack or configuration error, content and applications become inaccessible to users, affecting both revenue and reputation. more

All Quiet on the Virtual Front: Why Domain Investors’ Fear of the Feds is Irrational

When a sniper ends the life of soldier Paul Bäumer in Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," a laconic situation report from the frontlines recounts an unusually quiet day. In the grand scheme of things, nothing worth reporting has happened. Reading David Kravets' recent article in Wired brought this upsetting ending to mind. U.S. authorities taking down individual domains based on copyright infringement charges is the online equivalent of Remarque's allied snipers: picking off the occasional domain - for better or worse - has little effect on the overall situation. more

Most Popular Invalid TLDs Should Be Reserved

Some of the root server operators post public statistics for their domain name traffic at the top-level. For example, the graph (which can take a bit of time to generate, given ICANN's slow servers) for the L-root server's most popular Top-Level Domain (TLD) queries demonstrates, to no one's surprise, that .com is king. What's more interesting, though, especially given the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) debate, is to look at the most popular invalid (non-existent) TLDs. more

Endpoint Rollbacks & Data Shadow Copies

Recently I was asked by a customer how they can easily set up rollback capabilities on the endpoints in their corporate network. They had seen the marketing hype by various security technology providers that their products included rollback capabilities they could utilize if/when one of their workstations or servers was infected by malware. Having gotten this question more than once, I thought it would be a good subject to share with a broader audience. more

TLD Maintenance Significantly Improved With the New Registry Maintenance Notifications for EPP

Three years ago, the first Internet-Draft on Registry Maintenance Notifications for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) was published, which will become a Request for Comments (RFC). The IETF Registration Protocols Extensions (REGEXT) working group is the home of the coordination effort for standards track EPP extensions. They released eight RFCs over the last couple of years, and they are currently working on more than 15 Internet-Drafts. more

AOL and Goodmail: Two Steps Back for Email

Remember the old email hoax about Hillary Clinton pushing for email taxation? When we first heard AOL's plans for Goodmail today, we thought maybe the hoax had re-surfaced and a few industry reporters got hooked by it. But alas, this tax plan seems to be true. AOL has long held the leading standard in email whitelisting. Every email sender who cares about delivery has tried to keep their email reputation high so that they could earn placement on AOL's coveted Enhanced Whitelist. Now, AOL may be saying that those standards don't matter as much as a postage stamp when it comes to email delivery. more

Twenty Myths and Truths About IPv6 and the US IPv6 Transition

After hearing over 350 presentations on IPv6 from IPv6-related events in the US (seven of them), China, Spain, Japan, and Australia, and having had over 3,000 discussions about IPv6 with over a thousand well-informed people in the IPv6 community, I have come to the conclusion that all parties, particularly the press, have done a terrible job of informing people about the bigger picture of IPv6, over the last decade, and that we need to achieve a new consensus that doesn't include so much common wisdom that is simply mythical. There are many others in a position to do this exercise better than I can, and I invite them to make a better list than mine, which follows. more

Is a Domain Name Property?

In an article by Sheldon Burshtein, published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, the author examines the view on whether domain names are properties. The following is the abstract of this article: "...Domain names have become increasingly valuable assets, in some respects more valuable than trade marks. A domain name may identify not only the source of the goods, services, business or information, but also the virtual location of the source, much as an address or telephone number does. However, there is still a significant unresolved issue as to whether a domain name is a form of intangible property or merely a contractual right." more

ICANN Independence and Non-Profits on the Net – Get it Right and Go Forward

Later this week, ICANN is finally going to vote on the proposed sale of .ORG to Ethos Capital. It will decide the future owner of .ORG, but the decision will also provide a window into whether ICANN will remain independent of the U.S. government. It's a big decision, one that can strengthen both ICANN and the NGO community on the web, if we get it right. For nearly a decade, the ICANN community fought hard to untether itself from the U.S. Department of Commerce. more