The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ continues to monitor the registration rate of COVID-19 related domains in the .RU and .РФ ccTLDs. The monitoring is aimed at identifying potentially dangerous sites and minimize possible harm.
The increase in COVID-19 patients and the related toughening of restrictions continue to impact the rate of coronavirus related domain registrations. At the same time, cybercriminals remain alert and continue to register domains related to issuing QR codes and vaccination certificates. Internet users need to remain vigilant when visiting websites with these references.
The number of coronavirus related domains registered in July was a bit lower than in June: 147 in total, including 125 in .RU and 22 in .РФ.
Like before, the majority of new domains in July includes a direct reference to the virus: 89 in .RU and 15 in .РФ (against 124 and 19 in June, respectively). The number of registrations related to vaccination or including the names of coronavirus vaccines in Cyrillic or Latin scripts remains stable: 42 in .RU and 8 in .РФ (against 43 and 12 in June). Another 11 domains (9 in .RU and 2 in .РФ) were related to various COVID-19 tests (for example, for the presence of the virus or its antibodies).
Over the entire monitoring period (January 2020 through July 2021), 6,864 domains were added to the list of domains with the words “сorona,” “covid,” “pandemia,” “ковид”, “пандемия,” “вакцина,” “vaccine” and others: 5,746 in .RU and 1,118 in .РФ.
If you have been affected by visiting a website or reading an email using phishing domain names, including coronavirus-related names, please contact a competent internet security organization hotline. Hotlines can be found on the website of the Coordination Center’s other cybersecurity project, Domain Patrol, where industry news, useful instructions on what to do when faced with a cyber threat and rules of safe behavior on the internet are also published.
