Phishing domains should be quarantined - security company

 

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By Matt Whipp

Posted on 6 Dec 2006 at 15:42

F-Secure has issued an open letter to the domain-registration industry, calling on them to proactively deny the registration of domains clearly destined to become phishing sites.

It notes a recent registration of 'signin-ebay-c.com' with registrar directNIC, which is currently being run as a phishing site. Contact details for the domain are an anonymous gmail address and a phoney phone number: 123142311.

'Wouldn't it make sense for a registrar to filter such obvious registrations and have a real person review and approve them before they go through? At least check who the domain is being registered to in case it's obviously an imaginary person,' it reads.

In March, F-Secure ran a search of domains using the names of well-known banks and found thousands registered, many of which were phish sites.

Strato, which recently launched a domain-only service into the UK said that it found there was a 'demand from Asian companies that want to register domains in the UK'.

According to CTO Rene Wienholtz, Strato does investigate the provenance of domain applications it receives. 'We take measures to find out when the customer orders - we call every customer to be sure that the phone line exists... We feel that a cheap domain-only market in the UK should be secured against misuse,' he said.