Domain companies given intelligence on cyber threats

A newly established organisation is planning to prevent internet crime by ensuring the domain registration sector is provided with the necessary know-how to thwart  cyber criminals.

The Secure Domain Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in Canada, has been announced. Numerous firms, both in and out of the industry, have offered their support to the group, including registrars Rightside, Nominet and Name.com, as well as key service providers such as Verizon and Facebook.

SDF president and co-founder Chris Davis spoke to SCMagazine.com on how the group was formed, he said:

“The problems I was having as a researcher, was that [the majority of] modern malware actors used domain names for either command-and-control infrastructure or for distributing their malware.”

Davis explained how an actor whose activities had too often been detected would only need to register a second domain name in order to commit further attacks.

“What we are striving to do with the SDF is to provide domain registrars intelligence on the attackers.”

He went on to say that technology firms, including Verizon and Facebook, with large customer bases have shown just as much interest in obtaining threat intelligence to discover and stop attackers spreading infections or scams.

Smaller businesses could also certainly benefit from such intelligence but, for now, will have to make do with the information they possess in-house. The need for intelligence and information sharing will grow with more and more advanced threats making their way around the internet, so they will either have to provide ongoing training to their current workforce, or advertise information security vacancies to attract a new breed of professional.