Concern surrounds Google’s new domains

ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which performs tasks related to the Internet, is responsible, among other things, for the guidelines governing the operation of Internet names and addresses. While ICANN has authority over domains used on the Internet (such as .com, .org, .net, and other URL endings), it can delegate the authority to operate top-level domains (TLDs) to other registrars, such as Google Domains.

The search giant recently announced that it will enable .dad, . Reservation of addresses ending in .phd, .prof, .esq, .foo, .nexus, .zip and .mov, with which users, especially academic actors, can create websites with more personalized names. Thus, according to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the number of available TLDs has increased to 1,480.

The news, on the other hand, caused concern among security experts, more specifically the .zip and .mov domains among the novelties listed above, as they can provide another exploitable opportunity for malicious actors. Many websites and software automatically convert strings like “hwsw.hu” or “hwsw.zip” into a URL that the user can click on to take them to the appropriate domain. However, if e-mails and social media posts containing links ending in .zip or .mov become automatically clickable, it also means a new opportunity for fraudsters.

According to Randy Pargman, director of threat detection at security firm Proofpoint, the problem can be caused by malicious actors registering an address that can deceive the user, for example the name “photos.zip”, files with this name have been encountered for years by those who compress their photos in bulk. . With such an address, the fraudster doesn’t even need to send messages to get potential victims to click on the link – he just needs to register the address that hosts the malicious content, and then wait for people to create links to the address, which can be imagined in various ways by the attacker depending on your ingenuity.

According to Eric Lawrence, a senior software engineer at Microsoft and a veteran browser expert, the situation isn’t all that worrisome because the solution doesn’t seem like a particularly likely or exciting attack vector. According to Google’s reaction, abuse is of course possible, but according to it, the risk is manageable and well known, and it takes the necessary steps to prevent abuse.