Brand Protection

Hidden Botnet C&C on Legitimate Infrastructure? The Case of 000webhostapp[.]com

Threats can come from anywhere, even from legitimate hosting infrastructure. In fact, many cybercriminals often host their command-and-control (C&C) servers in known hosting providers' networks, sometimes those that offer bulletproof hosting services, to evade detection and consequent blocking.

COVID-19-Related Bulk Domain Registrations: A Possible Case of DNS Abuse?

Addressing Domain Name System (DNS) abuse has been a priority of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), notably since March 2020. During its 70th conference, the organization's members talked about creating a web page defining DNS abuse-related terms, which should be updated over time, to help users report cases.

Changing Roles Changes Risk

Managing a company's digital assets, administrators must keep their eyes on who has access to important resources like domains, domain name servers, and digital certificates - and with which vendors.

Protecting Intellectual Property Protects Consumers

Next week we will celebrate World IP Day. Observed annually on the 26th of April, World IP Day was created by WIPO in 2000 to highlight the critical role that intellectual property plays in our daily lives and in society as a whole.

“Voltswagen”: April Fool’s Prank, Brand Turmoil, and Bulk Domain Registrations

The accidental leak of Volkswagen's new name that turned out to be an April Fool's prank made headlines. Some were relieved that it was just a marketing stunt, while others cried foul. But those in the field of cybersecurity became more curious. What did the cyber world look like during the supposed leakage until the announcement that it was a prank?

What Are the Common Forms of Bulk Domain & Typosquatting Registrations?

Typosquatting can enable a variety of cyber threats that include but are not limited to phishing, malware-enabled attacks, and vulnerability exploitation. In a nutshell, the attackers can rely on the technique to mimic legitimate solution and service providers' domains to trick users into thinking they are getting update notifications from their vendors, for example, when they are actually not.

We Detected and Analyzed Thousands of CCTV-, Firewall-, and SCADA-themed Domains & Subdomains

Did you know that a comprehensive subdomain database can give you 69,383 fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) with the string "firewall," 241,654 FQDNs for "cctv," and 19,048 FQDNs for "scada"? That data can give cybersecurity researchers possible starting points for an article or even a full-blown research paper.

MarkMonitor Releases New gTLD Quarterly Report for Q1 2021

The Q1 2021 New gTLD Quarterly Report from our MarkMonitor team examines .kpmg usage, new gTLD Alexa.com rankings, recent launch analyses, and potential policy effects on .brand 'next round' applicants.

Come April, Nothing Is Certain Except Phishing and Taxes

In the past years, threat actors have made it a point to prey on U.S. taxpayers using phishing emails supposedly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The goal is often to trick victims into giving their login credentials to various platforms. This year is no different.

Expanding the List of Artifacts for the Recent JPMorgan Chase Squatting Campaign

On 13 March, IBM X-Force Exchange published nine artifacts -- three domain names and six IP addresses -- related to a squatting campaign targeting JPMorgan Chase and its stakeholders. We dug deeper into the list in hopes of publicizing additional artifacts that users may need to be wary of.