John Levine – Network Securitas

May 15, 2019

A Tough Week for IP Address Scammers

This post was originally published on this siteIn the early days of the Internet, there was a period when Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses (e.g. 4.4.4.4) were given out like cotton candy to anyone who asked. But these days companies are queuing up to obtain new IP space from the various regional registries that periodically dole out the prized digits. With the value of a single IP hovering between $15-$25, those registries are now fighting a wave of shady brokers who specialize in securing new IP address blocks under false pretenses and then reselling to spammers. Here’s the story […]

November 26, 2019

It’s Way Too Easy to Get a .gov Domain Name

This post was originally published on this siteMany readers probably believe they can trust links and emails coming from U.S. federal government domain names, or else assume there are at least more stringent verification requirements involved in obtaining a .gov domain versus a commercial one ending in .com or .org. But a recent experience suggests this trust may be severely misplaced, and that it is relatively straightforward for anyone to obtain their very own .gov domain. Earlier this month, KrebsOnSecurity received an email from a researcher who said he got a .gov domain simply by filling out and emailing an […]

March 7, 2020

U.S. Govt. Makes it Harder to Get .Gov Domains

This post was originally published on this siteThe federal agency in charge of issuing .gov domain names is enacting new requirements for validating the identity of people requesting them. The additional measures come less than four months after KrebsOnSecurity published research suggesting it was relatively easy for just about anyone to get their very own .gov domain. In November’s piece It’s Way Too Easy to Get a .gov Domain Name, an anonymous source detailed how he obtained one by impersonating an official at a small town in Rhode Island that didn’t already have its own .gov. “I had to [fill […]