Newly registered domains (NRDs) play a crucial role in cybersecurity due to their potential use in various malicious activities. These domains are often registered and used by cybercriminals shortly after their creation for:
Phishing attacks.
Malware distribution.
Domain squatting, typosquatting.
Importance of quick detection
Malicious Newly Registered Domains (NRDs) are difficult to detect. To maintain security, an enterprise network requires swift and dependable detection capabilities. Ideally, you need a security system that not only identifies NRDs but also intelligently predicts their potential malicious intent. Once detected, the system should block these malicious NRDs and generate alerts for your security team. This allows your personnel to investigate further and decide on appropriate actions in accordance with your company's policies.
Prevention Strategies
To protect against potential threats from WhoisFreaks' Newly Registered Domains, you can take the following steps to analyze a domain like 'amazon.com':
Download Newly Registered or Expired domains file.
Filter all domain names containing the keyword amazon. Just for your information, there are 57 Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) and 10 Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) newly registered on 2024-03-11 containing amazon.
Filter the list based on potential typosquatting domains, which are those that are similar to the targeted domains.
Analyze each of these domains individually using a live Whois lookup to retrieve current details. Additionally, we'll conduct historical lookups to gather past records and analyze previous ownerships for further insight.
Once this analysis is complete, we will have domains with red flags indicating potential risks. At this stage, we can consider taking the following measures:
Implement domain blocking or filtering at your network's perimeter defenses, such as firewalls, DNS filters, or web gateways.
Configure your security systems to alert administrators when attempts are made to access these domains.
Educate your employees about the risks associated with malicious domains.
Role of Expired Domains
Expired domains can be used for attacks in several ways, leveraging the trust and reputation previously established by the original domain owners.
Identifying Potential Threats
Expired domains can lead to vulnerabilities such as
If the expired domain was previously associated with a legitimate business or organization, attackers could recreate a similar website or email service to impersonate the original entity.
By taking over an expired domain, attackers can potentially access email accounts associated with that domain if they manage to configure the domain's mail exchange (MX) records
An expired domain with a good SEO history can be repurposed for phishing while still attracting traffic through search engines.
Prevention Strategies
To mitigate the threats posed by expired domains, organizations should implement a comprehensive domain management strategy. This includes;
Regularly auditing and tracking domain registrations to ensure key domains are renewed on time.
Employing domain monitoring services to keep an eye on the status of all company domains, and using security tools to detect and block malicious activities associated with expired domains. One such tool called Domain Monitoring is created to avoid such situations.
