RESTON, VA - According to the latest VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report from DNIB.com, the fourth quarter of 2024 concluded with 364.3 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs). This represents an increase of 2.0 million registrations, or 0.5%, compared to the third quarter of 2024, and a year-over-year growth of 4.4 million registrations, or 1.2%. The combined total of .com and .net TLDs reached 169.0 million domain name … [Read more...]
FBI Seizes Internet Domains Associated with Major Cybercrime Ring; 17M Victims
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A multi-jurisdictional operation involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several other law enforcement agencies has resulted in several well-known internet domains being seized that were a part of a major cybercrime ring responsible for hacking and stealing credentials from digital marketplaces. As of Wednesday, the Cracked.io and Nulled.to internet forums – long known as havens for threat actors who engaged in password theft, software … [Read more...]
FBI Shutdown Prolific Ransomware Group “Radar/Dispossessor,” Domains Seized
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The FBI has announced they have shut down a prolific ransomware group known as “Radar/Dispossessor” and seized multiple internet domains and servers utilized by the cyber threat actors, reportedly headed up by an individual known by the code-name “Brain.” As part of the FBI’s enforcement actions, they have dismantled a plethora of servers utilized by Radar/Dispossessor to carry out their ransomware attacks, including three in the United States, … [Read more...]
World’s Biggest Ransomware Group Shut Down, Domains Seized in Global Operation
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The operations of infamous ransomware group LockBit have been shut down, their domains seized, and several high-ranking members placed under arrest as the result of a recent digital takedown carried out by an international law enforcement operation. Operation Cronos, the code name of a joint effort made up by agencies representing 11 countries – Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United … [Read more...]
Q3 Domain Report: Slight “.COM” Reg Decline, New GTLDs Enjoy 10% Increase
RESTON, VA - Verisign, the company that is the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains (TLDs) and the .cc country-code top-level domain, released their 3rd quarter 2023 Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) this week that reveals by the end of the latest quarter, total domain registrations across all TLDs worldwide have reached 359.3 million. That number represents a 2.4 percent increase year over year, amounting to an … [Read more...]
VeriSign Says “.COM” Registrations Up, “NGTLDS” Up, Legacy “.NET” Down
RESTON, VA - VeriSign Inc., a global provider of domain name registry services and internet infrastructure, announced that their total number of Top-Level Domain (TLD) registrations worldwide have reached 356.6 million as of the end of the second quarter of 2023, as per the company’s latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). Verisign, based out of Reston, Virginia, operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen … [Read more...]
Generic Domain, Angel.com, Hits SEDO Weekly Sales List at $2,000,000
WEST PALM BEACH, FL – The generic domain name “Angel.com” sold at $2,000,000 this past week according to the latest SEDO.com weekly domain sales report. The five letter generic web address is currently leading to a crowdfunded movie studio website said to allows angel-investor users to choose which titles get funded. Also notable is a .de domain “credit.de” that sold for a 40,000 EUR ($48,138.00) and a .net … [Read more...]
NYT: “Dot-org Symbolizes Neither Quality Nor Trust; False Association with Credibility”
PALM BEACH, NY - Wow, the New York Times has taken a firm and unique approach to the news and industry buzz surrounding the sale of the .ORG registry to private equity firm, Ethos Capital. Bash the domain in a hitpiece to level the playing-field in what it calls the domains' opportunity to be used by a host of bad actors, all whom reap the benefits of dot-org’s "false association with credibility." In an opinion piece published yesterday by Sam Wineburg and Nadav Ziv, an … [Read more...]
German Police Raid Hosting Facility Dubbed “CyberBunker”; Seize Domains, 200 Servers
BERLIN – Thirteen people were arresting during a raid in Germany on September 27, 2019. According to Brian Krebs, a security journalist and investigative reporter for Krebs on Security, the raid targeted the physical premises of a Dark Web hosting operation that described itself as a “bulletproof” hosting provider that was willing to provide web site hosting services to any business, no matter how illegal or unsavory. This past Friday, 600 military equipped officers … [Read more...]
WordPress Vulnerability for Sites Running WooCommerce with “Shop Manager” Role
NEW YORK, NY – If you're running a WordPress website and are utilizing the popular WooCommerce plugin, a shopping cart used by roughly four-million sites, there is a new vulnerability which requires that your WooCommerce plugin be up to date, or users marked as “Shop Managers” could hijack your site and virtually wipe out all data by compromising your administrator account. This new vulnerability was first reported to WordPress and WooCommerce in August when it was … [Read more...]
31 Years Later: A Look at the Top 100 .DE Domain Sales Over Past 5 Years
NEW YORK, NY – According to NameBio, there were a total of 3,460 reported .DE domain sales over the last 5 year period. These top 100 total $4,282,897.00 in sales. The highest reported sales on this list were the domains “kik.de” for $246,080.00 with the second as “kaffee.de” for $237,474.00. Kik.de appears to be a major clothing retailer, while kaffee.de (which changed hands several times - latest this year in August) is a coffee company website waiting on further … [Read more...]
McDonald’s Terminates Plans for Branded gTLDs; Requests ICANN Not Delegate String
NEW YORK, NY – According to a letter written to ICANN on May 2, 2017, the McDonald’s globally branded empire has indicated it has lost interest in running and maintaining its own gTLD domains, (.McDonalds and .MCD), by terminating its registry agreement. McDonald’s is one of the world’s most visited restaurants, serves over 117 countries feeding millions of customers every day. In its top five markets (U.S., France, the U.K., Germany and Canada) nearly 75% of the … [Read more...]
The 20 Most Popular Domain Names; Measured by Google Search Results
The 20 top level domains with the most page results in Google: .com Commercial 4,860,000,000 .org Noncommercial 1,950,000,000 .edu US accredited postsecondary institutions 1,550,000,000 .gov United States Government 1,060,000,000 .uk United Kingdom 473,000,000 .net Network … [Read more...]