The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ is continuing to monitor the number of COVID-19-related domain registrations in .RU and .РФ. The monitoring is aimed at identifying suspicious registrations and, with the help of competent organizations, reducing potential harm from them.
From January 1 to April 13, 2020, Kaspersky Lab, which has the status of a competent organization and participates in the scientific and technical cooperation project Netoscope, flagged 1,481 “coronavirus” domains in .RU and 267 domains in .РФ as having a “data loss threat” in their products. This means that all devices protected by Kaspersky Lab anti-virus will receive information about these domain names and alert users visiting such sites of the potential threat.
By April 15, 3,188 domain names using the words “corona,” “covid,” “virus,” “корона,” “ковид” and “вирус” were registered in the Russian ccTLDs .RU and .РФ. This is 299 domain names more than a week ago when the latest study was conducted (247 domains were added in .RU and 52 – in .РФ). At the same time, an almost two-fold increase in the registration of coronavirus-related domains was recorded. Thus, we can conclude that there is a reduction in the growth rate of such
On the other hand, the Coordination Center notes a new trend: since April 1, 323 domain names with the words “test,” “gosuslugi,” “mos” and “propusk” have been registered in .RU. Obviously, this is in response to news about the introduction of digital permits in Moscow which are to be used for trips around the city, and can be applied for via the sites of city (mos.ru) and state services (gosuslugi.ru).
Details on how to protect yourself from the coronavirus online and what to do if you find a fraudulent site are available in the Media Center section of the Coordination Center’s website.
