SIDN: large increase in number of phishing websites with .nl domain – Computer – News

In the first months of 2020, almost five times as many phishing domains with a Dutch domain were detected compared to the previous months. SIDN sees a big increase, while other cybercrime domains are actually declining.

In the first quarter of 2020, the Internet Domain Registration Foundation Netherlands detected 5,493 .nl domains hosting a phishing domain. In the same period a year earlier, there were 705, according to the annual transparency report of the tld manager.

In the last quarter of last year, SIDN detected 943 Dutch phishing websites. Other increases in Dutch cybercrime domains are websites with a web shell and webshops with skimming malware. However, with 210 and 146 respectively, these are a much smaller problem.

In the calculations, SIDN includes websites that are taken offline by registrars. The foundation has registrars and hosters conduct their own research and remove the sites from the air in the event of abuse. If the registrar does not respond, the site will automatically be removed from the .nl zone after a while.

SIDN does not explain the large increase. It recently appeared that since the outbreak of the corona crisis, the number of fraud reports rose sharply, but that only started in March when the lockdown in the Netherlands started. In the first quarter of the year, the corona virus was a less urgent problem, which cybercriminals barely responded to.

The number of notice and takedownrequests received by SIDN in Q1 of 2020 doubled from seven in the fourth quarter of 2019 to fourteen. Earlier this month, the foundation achieved the milestone of six million .nl domain names.

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