Cybercriminals Abuse New TLDs in Phishing, Malware Attacks

By Eduard Kovacs on September 19, 2014
 
The recent expansion of generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) has attracted the attention of cybercriminals who have started abusing them for their malicious operations, researchers warned this week.
Over the past year, hundreds of new domain suffixes have been rolled out by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), including .GURU, .FLY, .PHARMACY, .SUPPORT, .PIZZA, .NETWORK, .AUCTION and .MARKET. ICANN believes that more than 1,300 new names could become available over the next few years.
While these TLDs can be useful for organizations, cybercriminals have come to realize that they too can put the new domain suffixes to good use.
Researchers at security solutions provider Malwarebytes analyzed their honeypot logs for the past 60 days to find out if the new types of domains have been abused for malicious purposes. They've identified cybercriminal operations associated with .PICTURES, .CONSULTING, .XYZ, .CLUB, .EMAIL, .SOLUTIONS, .DOMAINS, .COMPANY, .PHOTOS, .DIRECTORY, .ENTERPRISES and .GURU.
 
SecurityWeek/ full article here/ http://www.securityweek.com/cybercriminals-abuse-new-tlds-phishing-malware-attacks