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Attackers are constantly in search of new domains for links to
lead users to download malware, divulge personal data or spam
their friends, and a liberalization of the Web has expanded the
number of top-level domains tenfold in the past two years.
An analysis of tens of millions of websites by enterprise
security company Blue Coat found the most dangerous top-level
domains (TLDs) were .zip, .review and .country, while the safest
new ones were .london, .tel and .church.
"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," Blue Coat
wrote in its study.
"The reality for many of these new neighborhoods is that this is
not happening."
ICANN, the body that manages Web identifiers, launched an
initiative to expand the number of TLDs to promote competition
and choice online. Originally, there were just six not including
country codes: .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .net and .org.
Organizations who want to sell new TLDs have had to pay a
$185,000 fee to ICANN and demonstrate that they are capable of
running a registry.
The size of the global Web domain name sales market is hard to
determine because so many sales are private. Sought-after
domains can change hands for millions of dollars but more
obscure ones can be had for as little as 99 cents.
GoDaddy, the world's largest accredited registrar of domain
names, made sales of $1.4 billion last year and was valued at $3
billion in an initial public offering this year.
Blue Coat was bought by Bain Capital for $2.4 billion this year
in a sign of the strength of demand for cybersecurity
technology.
(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Keith Weir)
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