“In large scale experiments, we found that over 90% of the time, visitors to a parked domain would be directed to illegal content, scams, scareware and anti-virus software subscriptions, or malware, as the ‘click’ was sold from the parking company to advertisers, who often resold that traffic to yet another party,” Infoblox researchers wrote in a paper published today.
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David Brunsdon, a threat researcher at Infoblox, said the parked pages send visitors through a chain of redirects, all while profiling the visitor’s system using IP geolocation, device fingerprinting, and cookies to determine where to redirect domain visitors.
“It was often a chain of redirects — one or two domains outside the parking company — before threat arrives,” Brunsdon said. “Each time in the handoff the device is profiled again and again, before being passed off to a malicious domain or else a decoy page like Amazon.com or Alibaba.com if they decide it’s not worth targeting.”
Since domains are extremely cheap to own but can be very desirable, some people had the idea to buy domains in bulk that might be desirable one day. Then, when someone had a legitimate use for it,...
Since domains are extremely cheap to own but can be very desirable, some people had the idea to buy domains in bulk that might be desirable one day. Then, when someone had a legitimate use for it, the owner would be able to sell the domain at extortion rates. Until you do sell it, you can redirect it to malware and terrible ads to try and recoup the the extremely low cost of ownership and make some extra cash.
In my opinion, this practice is just being a leech off the domain name system and provides no benefit for society.
One of the more well known examples of this not happening is Steam, the gaming platform. steam dot com (I don’t want to link it) is owned by someone who parked it. Instead of paying the ransom, steam just went with the domain steampowered.com, which is now far more recognizable than steam dot com.
From the article: "A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect...
From the article: "A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware."
A "parked" domain is one that someone owns but isn't currently being used. Sometimes it's speculation, because they think someone else might buy it from them. Sometimes it's defensive - a company...
A "parked" domain is one that someone owns but isn't currently being used. Sometimes it's speculation, because they think someone else might buy it from them. Sometimes it's defensive - a company might buy domains similar to their own, or that they might use someday, to make sure nobody else gets them. Also, domain registrars will sometimes register domains themselves if they think one of their customers might want them.
While the domain isn't in use, whoever owns the domain might sell ads to pay the fees for owning it. Apparently, these ads are becoming increasingly sketchy.
I often thought that pages who check domain name availability would be the ones registering what you searched for. You searched for soupytwist.org oh no! It’s gone, what a shame. But the owner...
I often thought that pages who check domain name availability would be the ones registering what you searched for. You searched for soupytwist.org oh no! It’s gone, what a shame. But the owner will sell it for a grand. Whaddayasay?
There was reports of godaddy, a domain registrar doing exactly that a while back. When you searched for a domain, they would helpfully buy it in the background. Then when you would buy it from...
There was reports of godaddy, a domain registrar doing exactly that a while back. When you searched for a domain, they would helpfully buy it in the background. Then when you would buy it from another registrar because godaddy was pretty expensive, you would find out it wasn’t actually available. Then you would go back to godaddy and find that they « saved it so nobody else would take it », and charge you more for the pleasure.
Absolutely sage advice. This behavior is known as domain tasting by the way. GoDaddy did this to a domain I was looking at ages ago (literally 18 years ago so I dunno if it’s still an active...
Absolutely sage advice. This behavior is known as domain tasting by the way. GoDaddy did this to a domain I was looking at ages ago (literally 18 years ago so I dunno if it’s still an active problem). Thankfully they didn’t actually register the domain, they just held it for the five-day grace period mentioned in that wiki page. Because that was free for them to do, but actually registering domains people searched for would be unsustainable for their little hustle. I just waited it out, and bought my domain from a non-malicious registrar the moment it went back on the market.
Funny how with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) you can be prosecuted for manually editing a url, but massive organized crime in plain sight has no problems.
Funny how with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) you can be prosecuted for manually editing a url, but massive organized crime in plain sight has no problems.
From the article:
…
What is a "parked" domain?
Since domains are extremely cheap to own but can be very desirable, some people had the idea to buy domains in bulk that might be desirable one day. Then, when someone had a legitimate use for it, the owner would be able to sell the domain at extortion rates. Until you do sell it, you can redirect it to malware and terrible ads to try and recoup the the extremely low cost of ownership and make some extra cash.
In my opinion, this practice is just being a leech off the domain name system and provides no benefit for society.
One of the more well known examples of this not happening is Steam, the gaming platform. steam dot com (I don’t want to link it) is owned by someone who parked it. Instead of paying the ransom, steam just went with the domain steampowered.com, which is now far more recognizable than steam dot com.
As someone who couldn't buy a domain name for my family name (a very common problem, not just me), I can't help but agree.
From the article: "A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect visitors to sites that foist scams and malware."
A "parked" domain is one that someone owns but isn't currently being used. Sometimes it's speculation, because they think someone else might buy it from them. Sometimes it's defensive - a company might buy domains similar to their own, or that they might use someday, to make sure nobody else gets them. Also, domain registrars will sometimes register domains themselves if they think one of their customers might want them.
While the domain isn't in use, whoever owns the domain might sell ads to pay the fees for owning it. Apparently, these ads are becoming increasingly sketchy.
I often thought that pages who check domain name availability would be the ones registering what you searched for. You searched for soupytwist.org oh no! It’s gone, what a shame. But the owner will sell it for a grand. Whaddayasay?
There was reports of godaddy, a domain registrar doing exactly that a while back. When you searched for a domain, they would helpfully buy it in the background. Then when you would buy it from another registrar because godaddy was pretty expensive, you would find out it wasn’t actually available. Then you would go back to godaddy and find that they « saved it so nobody else would take it », and charge you more for the pleasure.
Damn. I was kinda being half jokey about it, incredible to learn that a company was actually doing this. Well slap my face and call me a kipper.
I don’t know if they do that anymore. But I avoid godaddy at all costs now.
Absolutely sage advice. This behavior is known as domain tasting by the way. GoDaddy did this to a domain I was looking at ages ago (literally 18 years ago so I dunno if it’s still an active problem). Thankfully they didn’t actually register the domain, they just held it for the five-day grace period mentioned in that wiki page. Because that was free for them to do, but actually registering domains people searched for would be unsustainable for their little hustle. I just waited it out, and bought my domain from a non-malicious registrar the moment it went back on the market.
Funny how with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) you can be prosecuted for manually editing a url, but massive organized crime in plain sight has no problems.