Top-Level Domains 'targeted by phishers'

Phishers continue to target specific domain name registrars and Top-Level Domains, a new report has said.

They are also increasingly using subdomain services to manage and host their phishing websites, the study by the Anti-Phishing Working Group found.

Of the 30,454 phishing domains, 5,591 were registered by phishers. Such "malicious" domain registrations make up around 18.5 per cent of domain names involved in phishing attacks.

A finding which could highlight the importance of website security is that the report noted phishing takes place most often on compromised web servers, unbeknown to the site operators.

This allows the phishers free hosting and disrupts efforts to rectify the situation because suspending a domain name or hosting account disables the resolution of the legitimate site.

Businesses concerned about phishing may want to consider a dedicated server, where the server specialists could deploy various software packages to protect a network from external threats such as hackers, spammers and Trojans.

Written by Debra Hastings-Henry