Actions against registry services abuse – Report April 2009

The above in figures review the recent actions of Directi, in conjunction with HostExploit independent advice, taken to track down and stop abusive domain names and registrants from abusing Directi’s services.

Registrar Abuse

• 8,506 domain names have been suspended that were either involved in abusive activity or registered by customers/registrants exhibiting persistent patterns of abuse.
• These domain names (and/or their registrants) were involved in various types of abuse, such as spamming, phishing/spoofing, malware perpetration, child pornography, financial frauds and falsified ‘Whois’ information.
• All other services utilized by any of these domain names have also been revoked.

Analysis

When suspending domain names on receiving complaints about their involvement in abuse, HostExploit is pleased to report that, Directi, while reviewing the complaints over the past few months, found certain trends:

• Domain names registered with the same/similar contact information (name, address patterns)
• Bulk registrations of domain names with a slight variation in the domain name e.g. 2008bases1.net, 2008bases2.net, 2008bases3.net, 2008bases4.net, 2008bases5.net …. by abusive registrants/customers
• Same blacklisted name servers being repeatedly utilized.
• Registrations in the same customer account involved in various forms of abuse
• Based on these, we reviewed all domain names, first in the customer's account, then in the reseller's account and then across the databases.

An active list of directly suspended domains is available for down load from HostExploit.com

Note: HostExploit and Directi’s agreement to maintain cooperative collaboration to clamp down on spam and other forms of abuse on the Internet has and is continuing to work. HostExploit confirms that they are pleased to work directly with the Directi abuse desk in helping Directi identify any miscreants that maybe using Directi's services. The partnership includes sharing investigative processes and intelligence data on an ongoing basis. With the view on net-neutrality all actions are based upon ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics

We welcome any concerns or reports related to the abuse of Directi’s registry services forward to abuse(at)directi.com or admin(at)hostexploit.com.

Together with the community we hope to continue taking steps to make the Internet a better and safer place.

EstDomains Active Domain List and Registrar Abuse

Estdomains Active Domain List

as of December 1st 2008 as now maintained by Directi is now available in a search able form on HostExploit.com .

The total: 272,488 active domains is provided as a community service, any research or abuse comments on these domains are welcomed to abuse(at)directi.com or estlist (at)hostexploit.com. Any of suspected illegal or child pornography content should be reported directly to IWF here




The images shown continue the review of the actions that Directi, in conjunction with HostExploit, have recently taken to track down and stop abusive domain names and registrants from abusing Directi’s services.

Registrar Abuse

• This provides for a total of 180,745 domains suspended from August 2008 and 527,000 domains with removal of domain registrant anonymity (Privacy Protect).

• Over 50,000 domain names have been suspended that were either involved in abusive activity or registered by customers/registrants exhibiting persistent patterns of abuse.

• These domain names (and/or their registrants) were involved in various types of abuse, such as rogue pharma, spamming, phishing/spoofing, malware perpetration, child pornography, financial frauds and falsified ‘Whois’ information.

• All other services utilized by any of these domain names have also been revoked.

• Of particular note is the suspension of a further 103 domains purveying child pornography the majority of which were apparently registered via Regname org and Buy-Cheap-Domain info (see notes below).

• Over the past three months, certain resellers have been identified who have been the destination of choice for bad actors; among these are Vivids Media GMBH, Klikdomains, MyNick.name, and Webst.ru. Approximately 125,000 domain names registered through these resellers have been suspended so far.


Discussion

One advantage of this exercise has been the development of active communication channels between us and the community. We've been able to refresh contacts with organizations e.g. Knujon, CastleCops, Spamhaus, McAfee, and Artists Against 419, among others, sharing intelligence on abuse activity.

In scouring for more such cases however, every emphasis is made on avoiding any false positives. All domains suspended were following abuse complaints and exhaustive analysis. With this is mind and with the view on net-neutrality all actions are based upon ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) e.g. 1.2 Avoid harm to others.

An active list of directly suspended domains is available for down load from HostExploit.com.
We welcome any concerns or reports related to the abuse of Directi’s registry services forward to abuse(at)directi.com or admin(at)hostexploit.com

Child Pornography - Researchers note:

We at HostExploit encourage community awareness, investigation and exposure of cyber crime. It is important to stress in virtually all jurisdictions, US, UK, and internationally, it is against the law to download content, possess, or in some cases to attempt to visit websites containing child pornography. This can only be carried out by law enforcement or under the direct authorization of law enforcement. No actual visits have been made to any such website by researchers associated with this report or HostExploit. In determining whether a website within this category is via law enforcement or governmentally authorized child protection agencies. Any reader or researchers, who believe they have knowledge of such a website or online service, should contact your local agency. For community purpose, HostExploit has an informational area for “Reporting Cyber Crime’ and in this case for reporting ‘Illegal Content’ .

Child Pornography on the Internet, Background:

US -Since its establishment in March 1998, the CyberTipline of the US based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has received more than 628,680 reports involving the possession, manufacture, and distribution of child pornography, the online enticement of children for sex acts, child prostitution, child sex-tourism, child molestation (not in the family), unsolicited obscene material sent to a child, and misleading domain names.


UK - IWF is the UK’s internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report potentially illegal online content within our remit. IWF work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimize the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.


Worldwide - INHOPE is the International Association of Internet Hotlines and was founded in 1999 under the EC Safer Internet Action Plan http://www.europa.eu.int/iap . INHOPE represents Internet Hotlines all over the world, supporting them in their aim to respond to reports of illegal content to make the Internet safer. Click here to find out more about INHOPE

Actions against registry services abuse – Report Oct 2008 - HostExploit and Directi

Jart Armin of HostExploit.com & Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi are pleased to jointly report on the outcome of community actions against abuse of Directi’s domain registry and PrivacyProtect.

The above in figures review of the actions that Directi, in conjunction with HostExploit, have recently taken to track down and stop abusive domain names and registrants from abusing Directi’s services.
Registrar Abuse

• Over 50,000 domain names have been suspended that were either involved in abusive activity or registered by customers/registrants exhibiting persistent patterns of abuse.
• These domain names (and/or their registrants) were involved in various types of abuse, such as spamming, phishing/spoofing, malware perpetration, suspected pedopornography, financial frauds and falsified ‘Whois’ information.
• All other services utilized by any of these domain names have also been revoked.
• Over the past three months, certain resellers have been identified who have been the destination of choice for bad actors; among these are Vivids Media GMBH, Klikdomains, MyNick.name, and Webst.ru. Approximately 125,000 domain names registered through these resellers have been suspended so far.

PrivacyProtect

• A large incentive for bad actors to use Directi’s services has been PrivacyProtect.org. This service has been disabled for over 27,000 abusive domain names.
• The service had been permanently disabled for all existing and new registrations through resellers/registrars that have seen high volumes of abusive registrations - notable being the ones mentioned above and Estdomains. This has amounted to approximately 500,000 domain names which had privacy protection canceled.

Analysis

When suspending domain names on receiving complaints about their involvement in abuse, HostExploit is pleased to report that, Directi, while reviewing the complaints over the past few months, even before the ‘Atrivo-Cyber Crime USA’ report, found certain trends:

• Domain names registered with the same/similar contact information (name, address patterns)
• Bulk registrations of domain names with a slight variation in the domain name e.g. 018xyz.com, 018xyza.com, 018xyzb.com, 018xyzc.com …. by abusive registrants/customers
• Same blacklisted name servers being repeatedly utilized.
• Registrations in the same customer account involved in various forms of abuse
• Based on these, we reviewed all domain names, first in the customer's account, then in the reseller's account and then across the databases. Based on these similarities, 35,000 domain names were identified and have been labeled as co-network.

Discussion

Directi’s strengthened abuse team continues to review complaints and revoke privacy protection for abusive domain names, while also forwarding the complaint to the Registrars for whom Directi provide software and other services for them to take action. Where reports of abuse emerge from security community blogs or forums, Directi are now proactively making searches for such comments and investigating any issue that may involve Directi or a reseller.

One advantage of this exercise has been the development of active communication channels between us and the community. We've been able to refresh contacts with organizations e.g. StopBadware, Knujon, CastleCops, Spamhaus, and Artists Against 419, among others, sharing intelligence on abuse activity.

In scouring for more such cases however, every emphasis is made on avoiding any false positives. With this is mind and with the view on net-neutrality all actions are based upon ACM (Association of Computing Machinery)http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics e.g.

1.2 Avoid harm to others.

"Harm" means injury or negative consequences, such as undesirable loss of information, loss of property, property damage, or unwanted environmental impacts. This principle prohibits use of computing technology in ways that result in harm to any of the following: Internet users, and the general public.

An active list of directly suspended domains is available for down load from HostExploit.com

HostExploit and Directi have agreed to maintain their cooperative collaboration to clamp down spam and other forms of abuse on the Internet as rapidly as possible. HostExploit confirms that they are pleased to work directly with the Directi abuse desk in helping Directi identify any miscreants that maybe using Directi's services. The partnership includes sharing investigative processes and intelligence data on an ongoing basis.

We welcome any concerns or reports related to the abuse of Directi’s registry services forward to abuse(at)directi.com or admin(at)hostexploit.com

Together with the community we hope to continue taking steps to make the Internet a better and safer place.

Joint statement from Directi, HostExploit and Kunujon

In light of recent developments, Jart Armin of HostExploit.com Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Garth Bruen of Knujon have had an open dialogue and mutually agreed to release this joint statement clearing any previous misconceptions and reaffirming their common goal to combat abuse on the Internet. Here are few of the points they would like to jointly make -

* Directi, HostExploit, Knujon recognize and confirm that they share the common goal of continuing to combat spam and abuse on the Internet through cooperation, collaboration and proactive action. In conversation yesterday, Directi, HostExploit and Knujon agreed to publish this statement to clarify any misconceptions and affirm their mutual commitment to work closely to combat abuse.

* Directi clarified to HostExploit that, LogicBoxes (a Directi business) is not hosting any of Atrivo's websites. Atrivo runs its web infrastructure under the name of Hostfresh.com which is not affiliated with Directi in any manner.

* Directi also confirmed that ESTDomains is not a Directi company, and Directi does not control the actions or clients of ESTDomains, a fact that HostExploit was already aware of.

* HostExploit confirms that its report was not meant to allege that LogicBoxes is directly sponsoring Internet abuse, rather its report was meant, in good faith, only to provide relevant parties with all information and data which can be used to clean up websites that were violating principles of ethical behavior. HostExploit hopes that other Internet news sites which may have taken the data in the HostExploit report out of context in assuming that LogicBoxes is directly affiliated with Atrivo rectify this misconception. Directi confirms that LogicBoxes is simply a software provider to various ICANN Accredited Registrars, and its only role was providing software for domain registration and DNS management.

* HostExploit and Knujon did share with Directi a separate list of additional web sites known for badware that belong to Atrivo, enabling Directi's abuse team to swiftly suspend them. Directi HostExploit and Knujon intend to continue this information exchange to speedily resolve abuse issues, and to further demonstrate transparency the community can contact either Directi or / and HostExploit to ensure action is taken.

* Directi has clarified that privacyprotect.org is merely a privacy protection service used by many of Directi's legitimate clients, not unlike the privacy protection services offered by other Registrars. Directi further confirmed that privacy protection had already been disabled on a large percentage of Atrivo's domain names over a month ago. Since Directi offers privacy protection free of cost, there are miscreants who use it to cloak their malicious activities. However Directi reaffirmed that its abuse team will suspend privacy protection on any domain for which they receive a genuine complaint in less than 24 hours. In fact a few months ago, based on reports and data obtained from the antispam community, Directi ceased to offer its privacy protection services to all customers of ESTDomains and to tens of thousands of other domains obtained through the community. Currently over half a million genuine customers of Directi use privacy protection services to prevent their whois data from being harvested.

* Directi affirms they are in no way supporting illicit online pharmacies. KnujOn has sent a list of newly populated fake pharmacy domains that Directi suspended. Directi and KnujOn now jointly call on the Internet community, private industry, and government to help develop policy and methods to put a stop to the fake pharmacy menace since Registrars cannot do this alone.

* Knujon acknowledges that the 48 Registrars that it thought were phantom are actually in existence as Delaware incorporated legitimate companies with a valid ICANN Accreditation and accurate contact information. Knujon's confusion stemmed from the fact that ICANN does not require these companies to publically report their incorporation details.

* Directi and HostExploit have discussed further ways to enhance their cooperative collaboration to clamp down spam and other forms of abuse on the Internet as rapidly as possible. Directi acknowledges and applauds HostExploit continuous efforts in tracking down miscreants. HostExploit and Knujon confirms that they are pleased to work directly with the Directi abuse desk in helping Directi identify any miscreants that maybe using Directi's services. The partnership includes sharing investigative processes and intelligence data on an ongoing basis.

Together with the community we hope to continue taking steps to make the Internet a better and safer place.

ATRIVO – Cyber Crime USA Report - Update 090608 a

We demonstrated a limited number of examples of badware websites with Directi providing some form of Internet connectivity with data confirmation on Sept 04 08, and historical third party sources. Below we show the welcome results of actions taken by Directi as of Saturday 090608. - Click on the graphics to enlarge.

xpantivirussecurity.com – rogue anti-virus – was with connectivity by Atrivo and Directi (OpticalJungle), registrar Directi (PublicDomainRegistry), registrant, obviously false data March 08 courtesy Sunbelt Software

Graphics of internet connectivity 9/4/08

Graphics of Internet connectivity Sat 9/6/08

Loads.cc – botnet and DDos for hire service – was with connectivity by Directi (OpticalJungle), registrar Directi (PublicDomainRegistry) registrant, obviously false data Cited Nov 2007

Graphics of internet connectivity 9/4/08

Graphics of Internet connectivity Sat 9/6/08

No Internet Connectivity!

Comment:


“That's one small step for Directi, one giant leap for a safer Internet”.

On behalf of the online community we thank Bhavin Turakhia, CEO and Directi, for their prompt actions, to our findings. These examples are perhaps only a small in comparison to the overall problem we face, but are still significant victories in the fight against cyber crime and the head on approach of HostExploit's 'Atrivo - Cyber Crime USA' report.

We all hope this leads to even greater actions and security focus by the Hosting and Registrar community?





Jart Armin

HostExploit.com