Domain Name Resale Market a Haven for Phishers?

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Domain Name Resale Market a Haven for Phishers?

By Dave Zan
November 01, 2006 Views: 10,474 Add Comment

In a recent article at TechWeb, the following observations were made:

Internet addresses that appeal to identity thieves eager to rip off consumers are being posted by major domain resellers, a security company charged Friday.

Finnish-based F-Secure has identified more than 30 registered domain names for resale on Cambridge, Mass.-based Sedo that would be of interest only to the legitimate holder of the trademark or to phishers, criminals who try to dupe consumers into divulging personal information by enticing them to fake Web sites. Among the domains: citi-bank.com, bankofameriuca.com, americanexpresscredicard.com, mastercarding.com, and visacardcredit.com.

“Why would anybody want to buy these domains unless they are the bank themselves—or a phishing scammer?” wrote Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure’s chief research officer, in an alert on the company’s site.

In its search of Sedo, F-Secure also found domain names for resale that use the accent characters “” and “” in place of the normal “a” or “i” to create “highly deceptive” URLs like vsa.com, p’ypal.com, and payp’l.com.

Originating blog post is located here.

By Dave Zan

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