Both Reuters and the CNBC are reporting on a study performed by security company Blue Coat that explored the most dangerous top level domains.
[The study] found the most dangerous top-level domains (TLDs) were .zip, .review and .country, while the safest new ones were .london, .tel and .church.
Researchers looked at web requests for more than 15,000 businesses and 75 million users. They found that most of the dangerous domains were used for less than 24 hours, in order to avoid countermeasures, and that most of the domains were used for phishing or delivering some type of malware.
The report puts part of the blame back on the TLD operators who, through ICANN's generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) initiative, can become administrators if they can prove that they have the proper infrastructure and pay the $185,000 evaluation fee.
Ideally, TLDs would all be run by security-conscious operators who diligently review new domain name applications, and reject those that don't meet a stringent set of criteria. The reality for many of these new neighborhoods is that this is not happening.
Link to the original study [PDF].
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:05AM
Somewhere Ethanol-Fueled is off transferring his bitcoin botnet farms to report back to imnotanalcoholic.church.
I'm so old domain names with dashes in them look scary still.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:18AM
Are you kidding? I'm so old domain names that begin with a numeral just look wrong to me. 3com.com always gave me the willies. I'm glad it's gone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @02:38AM
3Com corporation is defunct (now part of HP) but the domain name is still registered.
Domain Name: 3COM.COM
Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 292
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com [markmonitor.com]
Name Server: NS1.HP.COM
Name Server: NS2.HP.COM
Name Server: NS3.HP.COM
Name Server: NS4.HP.COM
Name Server: NS5.HP.COM
Name Server: NS6.HP.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited [icann.org]
Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited [icann.org]
Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited [icann.org]
Updated Date: 08-nov-2014
Creation Date: 11-dec-1986
Expiration Date: 10-dec-2015
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @03:10AM
> I'm so old domain names that begin with a numeral just look wrong to me. 3com.com always gave me the willies.
Ironic since Metcalfe invented ethernet and went on to found 3com to commercialize it (because PARC couldn't get their head out of their butt).
On the other hand he thought wireless would never take off, that open source was better named "open sores" and that the internet would "collapse." So, kind of a one-hit wonder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @04:36AM
Mockapetris wrote the specification for DNS and if you check RFC 882 Appendix 1, you will see that the "preferred syntax of domain names" indicates to start with a letter A-Z. RFC 882 is dated November 1983.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 02 2015, @04:47PM
I remember going to www.com one time and it took a clearing of the history before I could browse the internet again.
Certain domain names are abominations and the owners should be burned at the stake.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:16AM
Fuck. porn.church is already taken.