![]() Phishing attacks using websites registered through Namecheap, before and after the registrar settled a lawsuit with Meta. ![]() While the terms of that settlement have not been disclosed, new phishing domains registered through Namecheap declined more than 50 percent the following quarter, Interisle found. The two parties settled the matter in April 2022. In March 2020, Meta sued domain registrar giant Namecheap, alleging cybersquatting and trademark infringement. This is the second time in as many years that a lawsuit by Meta against a domain registrar has disrupted the phishing industry. “Some of them time out after 14 days, some do it after 30, and some keep them forever.”įreenom did not respond to requests for comment. “One of the things we don’t have visibility into is how each of the blocklists determine to remove a URL from their lists,” he said. Piscitello said it’s too soon to tell the full impact of the Freenom lawsuit, noting that Interisle’s sources of spam and phishing data all have different policies about when domains are removed from their block lists. The company publishes historical data sets quarterly, both on malware and phishing. Interisle collects data from 12 major blocklists for spam, malware, and phishing, and it receives phishing-specific data from Spamhaus, Phishtank, OpenPhish and the APWG Ecrime Exchange. “Responsible for over 60% of phishing domains reported in November 2022, Freenom’s percentage has dropped to under 15%.” “We’ve observed a significant decline in phishing domains reported in the Freenom commercialized ccTLDs in months surrounding the lawsuit,” Piscitello wrote on Mastodon. Interisle partner Dave Piscitello said something remarkable has happened in the months since the Meta lawsuit. ![]() Meta pointed to research from Interisle Consulting Group, which discovered in 2021 and again last year that the five ccTLDs operated by Freenom made up half of the Top Ten TLDs most abused by phishers. “Even after receiving notices of infringement or phishing by its customers, Freenom continues to license new infringing domain names to those same customers.” “The five ccTLDs to which Freenom provides its services are the TLDs of choice for cybercriminals because Freenom provides free domain name registration services and shields its customers’ identity, even after being presented with evidence that the domain names are being used for illegal purposes,” Meta’s complaint charged. ![]() Meta withdrew its December 2022 lawsuit and re-filed it in March 2023. Meta initially asked a court to seal its case against Freenom, but that request was denied. And there are countless reports from Freenom users who’ve seen free domains removed from their control and forwarded to other websites.īy the time Meta initially filed its lawsuit in December 2022, Freenom was the source of well more than half of all new phishing domains coming from country-code top-level domains. tk for Tokelau.įreenom has always waived the registration fees for domains in these country-code domains, but the registrar also reserves the right to take back free domains at any time, and to divert traffic to other sites - including adult websites. Image: Interisle Consulting.įreenom is the domain name registry service provider for five so-called “country code top level domains” (ccTLDs), including. The volume of phishing websites registered through Freenom dropped considerably since the registrar was sued by Meta.
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