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from the web-browsers-need-an-avoid-ghetto-setting dept.
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: 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.