Newly Registered & Just Expired Domains Blog

Warding Off Threats Spawned by the Abuse of Newly Registered Domains

When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) agreed to the addition of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) in 2012 through the New gTLD Program, the number of spam emails coming from these domains started to rise significantly.

In fact, studies revealed that a new malicious site is hosted on a domain with a new gTLD extension every 15-20 seconds. What’s more, seven out of 10 newly registered domains are classified as either suspicious or downright malicious and thus should not be accessed.

A possible reason for said criminal activities is that domains sporting the new gTLDs are relatively cheap in comparison to the more popular .com and .net domains. Another reason is that most credible name entries using traditional TLDs have already been taken. Either way, there seems to be a substantial amount of abusive domains registered using a new gTLD after its sunrise period (the 30 days during which trademark holders are the only ones entitled to register their domains), and, similarly, across registries.

As we know, spammers and phishers need tons of domains to pull off numerous scams at once. Going with cheaper, more available domains lets them cut down on costs, which makes sense from the perspective of threat actors since malicious hosts are often quickly taken down once detected as dangerous.

In this post, we further discuss the threats that come from newly registered domains and illustrate how Domain Reputation API and Newly Registered & Just-Expired Domains Database can help identify and assess potentially dangerous online properties.

Who Has Been Acquiring the Web? Newly Registered Domains Can Tell You

Connectivity is a double-edged sword. Though it makes reaching almost anyone and anything with an email address or a website a breeze, it also puts all things online at the mercy of cybercriminals and unfair competitors who are always on the lookout for benefiting from established brands using malicious copycat or similarly misleading sites registered under new domains.

There is no doubt that one of a company’s greatest assets — its customer or client portal — is its website. It can be likened to a shop’s front door. And let’s face it, we all want to keep thieves and infringers out of our places of business.

To make this happen, you need a strategy in place, and one which involves keeping track of all new and disguised players on the web — a process that can be aided by an effective domain-monitoring tool such as Newly Registered Domains. If you are still wondering why you should care about recent domain registrations, read on to find out.

Monitoring Newly Registered Domains

The first line of defense for companies that want to protect their staff or customers from bogus websites is monitoring domain names.Hackers will use variations of domain names to lure unsuspecting users onto portals whose purpose is to steal private information and drop viruses onto devices.

Whois XML API offers a Domain Research Suite that provides users with the ability to watch whether new domain names closely resemble existing registrations, which may be intended to trap internet users.