In April 2016, Group-IB, a leading online crime investigation company, sent 103 complaints to accredited registrars demanding the cancellation of delegation of offending domain names, down 33 percent from March. As a result, the delegation of 94 domain names was cancelled.
Of the nine domain names being delegated, seven were not blocked because their administrators quickly rectified the situation. Another two were unblocked after their owners dealt with the problems that had led to the shutdown in the first place, following the usual procedure. Access to them was restored after a request from CERT-GIB.
Phishing accounts for the bulk of illegal activity for which the domain names were blocked (56 percent), while botnet controlling was the least frequent reason for the cancellation of the domain name delegation (9 percent); 99 percent of offenders are registered in the .RU top level domain.
Group-IB conducts work on violator domain names exposure under an agreement with the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ on preventing an unauthorized use of the .RU and .РФ domains. The company’s activities also include fighting the use of domain names under the .RU and .РФ top level domains for illegal activity, such as phishing, unauthorized access to information systems, proliferation of malware, and controlling networks of infected computers.
For more information on how to report potential cyber threats or any illegal activity on the web, please visit the Coordination Center website.
