ICANN Domain Expansion Could Increase Phishing

Orome1 writes "The ICANN board gave final approval to what some are calling 'the most dramatic change to the Internet in four decades,' allowing the expansion of new TLDs. Some argue this ICANN initiative could force a land grab of domains by businesses to protect their company reputation. However, they aren't the only ones who are likely to try to snag these new top level domains. There's a very legitimate concern that cybercriminals could also seek these new domains to create legitimate looking websites using well-known brand names. These can then be used for phishing attacks or delivery of Trojan malware to unsuspecting visitors."

Comments

As stated in the original story:

[Luniz]

"It will cost $185,000 to apply, and individuals or organizations will have to show a legitimate claim to the name they are buying." I do not think that Peggy will be able to set up .discovercard :p

Re:As stated in the original story:

[Xest]

Out of interest, does anyone know at $185k a pop what exactly ICANN will be doing with it's new found millions?

Re:First TLD to go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously phishing sites should be using the .con TLD: citibank.con, barclays.con etc. Truth in advertising and cunning typo-squatting at the same time!

Cash grab

[Tridus]

This scheme is nothing more then a cash grab. It does nothing useful for domain names. The cost of one of these is sky high ($185,000). There's no need being filled. It's just ICANN trying to get people who already have big websites to pay for another domain for the same site to keep someone else from registering it.

This stuff should not be run on a "how do we extort more money out of DNS" methadology.