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Our research team analyzed 24.4+ million domains registered between 1 October and 31 December 2024 from the Newly Registered Domains (NRD) Data Feed. We found that the number of NRDs increased by 11.0% compared with the previous quarter. We also looked closer into 3.5+ million domains tagged as indicators of compromise (IoCs) in Q4, along with 697.4+ million mail exchange (MX) and 1.5+ billion name server (NS) domains for the past 365 days based on our passive DNS database files for December 2024.
Our domain activity trends analysis allowed us to uncover the following:
An overview of the key insights from the report is presented below. You may also access the complete Global Domain Activity Report: Q4 2024 here.
While the ever-increasing NRD volume translates to business growth, it can also mean more avenues for scams and other online threats. Case in point: As of Q3 2024, the world saw a 75% increase in the number of cyber attacks. That said, we now face an average of 1,876 cyber attacks per organization. We thus looked into the growth in new domain registrations and malicious web property detection in the global domain activity report in Q4 2024.
What exactly transpired in Q4? Our latest global domain activity analysis marked an 11.0% increase in the total NRD registration compared with Q3 2024. Both the gTLD and ccTLD domain registration volumes increased by 9.8% and 14.5%, respectively.
Based on our Q4 2024 ranking of the most popular gTLDs and ccTLDs, the same players pretty much made the list. The .com gTLD remained in first place, with the other extensions like .top, .shop, and .bond lagged far behind. Among the ccTLDs, .cn kept the top position as in Q3.
GoDaddy held on to the top NRD registrar spot, accounting for 13.7% of the total number of NRDs. Namecheap ranked second with an 11.1% share, followed by Dynadot with 4.5%.
In our latest quarterly report, we shed more light on the top 2 NS domain csof[.]net.
The domain csof[.]net, based on our research, is owned by Csoft Hosting, a Manhattan-based open-source hosting service provider for the past 25 years now. It administered 150.6+ million or 9.4% of the top 100 NS domains we analyzed in Q4.
We also took a much closer look at our Threat Intelligence Data Feeds, specifically at the 3.5+ million malicious domains tagged as IoCs in Q4 2024.
Our dataset indicated that threat actors continued to favor using .com domains over others, with the gTLD accounting for 18.1% of the total IoC volume. Seven other gTLD extensions .org, .net, .biz, .bazar, .info, .hosting, and .blackfriday also made the top 10. Two ccTLDs, .ru and .cn, also figured in the top 10 list.
Global Domain Activity Report: Q4 2024 provides high-level insights into domain registrations and DNS activity worldwide. The report sheds light on domain and DNS record preferences and usage patterns that can help inform business and cybersecurity decisions.
Don’t hesitate to download the full report or contact us for more information about accessing domain, DNS, and cyber threat intelligence for your organization.
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