ICANN chief executive Goran Marby has a message for its hundreds of registrars. Though ICANN can’t involve itself in content issues, “That does not mean we are unconcerned or unaware of how certain domain names are being misused in fraudulent activities during this global pandemic.”
It is this concern that prompted me to contact the registries and registrars thanking them for their efforts and actions aimed at helping to mitigate and minimize the abusive domain names being used to maliciously take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic. For example, the Registrar Stakeholder Group has posted a useful guide, entitled “Registrar approaches to the COVID-19 Crisis” that provides a number of steps and resources the registrar community can use in their efforts.
Many of our contracted parties already support a Framework to Address Abuse, which deals with DNS abuse and website content abuse. I continue to commend them for making this commitment to protect the DNS from those who would maliciously exploit domain names. In my correspondence to the registries and registrars, I expressed ICANN org’s appreciation for their work during the pandemic.
Additionally, I’m pleased to tell you that ICANN org has joined registries, registrars, security experts, law enforcement, Internet engineers, and others, in the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Coalition (CTC). The CTC’s mission is to, “operate the largest professional-quality threat lab in the history of cybersecurity out of donated cloud infrastructure and with rapidly assembled teams of diverse, cross-geography, cross-industry threat researchers.”
I am proud that so many in the Internet ecosystem are joining together during this crisis to stop those who prey on the desperate.
AFP reports that just in March at least 100,000 websites were registered with names including terms like “COVID,” “corona,” and “virus,” according to recent report prepared for ICANN.
“COVID-19 is unique in that it is truly global; and the cyber bad guys haven’t drifted toward it, they have rushed toward it like a barrel off Niagra Falls,” ICANN security chief John Crain told AFP.
“This is a new low, preying on people at a time like this.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot