The ICANN announced on its blog the launch of a new project. It was called INFERMAL which stands for Inferential Analysis of Maliciously Registered Domains. The title conveys the essence of the project quite clearly: it aims to collect comprehensive information about the conditions that facilitate the registration of domain names, which are subsequently used for illegal purposes: for example, for phishing, malware distribution, spam, etc.
In general terms, these conditions are known: they primarily include the low price of registration and the possibility of mass registrations. However, the ICANN emphasizes that no study has yet been published that systematizes and analyzes the preferences of attackers when registering domains for illegal purposes. It is this gap that INFERMAL members intend to fill. They plan to study the practices of all domain registrars and compare them with the registration statistics of malicious domains.
The scientific coordinator of the project will be Dr. Maciej Korczyński, professor of computer science and cybersecurity at the Institute of Technology in Grenoble, France. Since 2015, he has published more than 30 scientific articles on DNS security and malicious use of domain names. It is expected that the results of the work of the INFERMAL project may form the basis of new ICANN corporate policies aimed at countering malicious domain registrations. ICANN's announcement also notes that the start time of the project was not chosen by chance. It comes ahead of the next phase of the New Generic Top-Level Domains program, and its findings will help protect future domain zones from malicious registrations.
