This surely is great news.
Laura Mather from the APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group) declared
that the DotAsia Organisation had agreed to a new policy,
consisting of banning domains associated to phishing.
This new registry which has just launched the .asia gTLD (generic
Top Level Domain) seems to be willing to close down the domains
leading to phishing content.
We're glad to hear this, because registries usually set explicit
policies restraining them to interfere in disputes regarding domain
names. These policies are particularly driven by their need to
protect themselves against legal issues and from overwhelming
work.
But to shut down a fraudulent website using fast-flux botnet
techniques, your only hope is going after the domain name, and so
to contact the registrar. But at the registrar level, it takes
often too much time to be really effective because of insufficient
staff/process capacity or declared complaisance with fraudsters
from some of these companies. (Who said Estdomains?)
Directly shutting down the domain has its advantages compared to
remove the content on the hosting side, since there are a growing
number of phishing campaigns using "fast flux"-like technology. It
is not rare nowadays to see one campaign being hosted on twenty
servers or more. Even if one is shut down, the others are still
active. But in this case, there is often a single domain leading to
all these hosts. Cutting this link is the only efficient way to
stop this kind of phishing.
To have the registries getting involved in the fight against
phishing would definitely be helpful, particularly if they put some
effort (staff members, extended hours
) on the matter. On their
side, DotAsia seems to want to rely on a few trusted sources that
will send them verified information.
Lets hope such willingness turn into reality and effective
success, and give ideas to the other registries...
