October saw 185 coronavirus-related domain names registered in .RU and .РФ, which is higher than in September
Another monitoring of the list of .RU and .РФ ccTLDs carried out by the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ shows the number of domain registrations related to coronavirus and measures to hold down the pandemic has gone up again.
In October .RU saw 154 coronavirus-related domain names and .РФ, 31. The total increase accounted for 185 domain names, which is 65 names higher than in September, when 120 coronavirus-related domain names were registered in .RU and .РФ.
owever, the numbers are still significantly lower than during the period of the “first wave.” For example, in March 2020 the number of COVID-19-related registrations spiked and reached 1,936 coronavirus-related domains, with 559 in the bit more favorable month of May.
Over the entire period of monitoring (January - October 2020) 4,445 domain names containing the words “сorona,” “covid,” “pandemic,” “ковид,” “пандемия,” “вакцина” and others were added to .RU and 906 to .РФ; the total number of coronavirus-related domains reached 5,351.
The monitoring is aimed at identifying suspicious domain names and reducing any possible harm using the institute of competent organizations. For example, over the 10 months of monitoring Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity company that is participating in the Netoscope project, flagged 1,893 coronavirus-related domains (1,592 in .RU and 301 in .РФ) with a “data loss threat” in its products, or 35 percent of the overall coronavirus-related domains.
Instructions and advice on what to do in case of a cyberthreat (phishing, botnet, malware, or unsanctioned access to data) as well as hotlines of competent organizations can be found on the website of the Coordination Center’s project Domain Patrol.
