e-Crimes, Fraud and Abuse in the Domain Name System
This 2009 IGF-USA session description: “With the ever-expanding profile of uses and users on the Internet, crime and offline threats are moving online. The online world also opens up new and ever more dangerous threats to e-commerce, the online user community and service providers in phishing, fraud, online identity theft and other malicious conduct. This panel explores the current state and ongoing evolution of online fraud and abuse affecting the DNS, including implications for privacy and other relevant Internet governance issues. Panelists will address the challenges of maintaining free and open expression on the Internet as new policies and mechanisms are developed to fight fraud and abuse in the DNS.”
Brian Cute, vice president of discovery services for Afilias, was the panel moderator. Participants on the panel included Greg Aaron, key account management and domain security for Afilias; Fred Felman, chief marketing officer for MarkMonitor; Tom Donnelly, advocate for Intercontinental Hotels Group; Bobby Flaim, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Rodney Joffe, senior vice president and chief technologist for Neustar; Michael Palage, president and CEO of Pharos Global Inc.; Alexa Raad, CEO for Public Interest Registry and board chair for the Registry Internet Safety Group; John Berryhill, intellectual property attorney.
View excerpts from this panel at the following link:
Malware seen as the most prevalent and dangerous threat
A person walks into a bank with a gun. The town falls silent, the cops circle the bank with their own guns drawn and a silent standoff punctuated by bull-horn-augmented persuasions ensues. Once apprehended, that person subsequently faces criminal charges and most likely, imprisonment. The same consequences must be paid by criminals who carry out e-crimes like phishing and the creation of malware. That is the view of Rodney Joffe, senior vice president and chief technologist for Neustar.
Joffe was part of a nine-person panel discussing e-Crimes: Fraud and Abuse in the Domain Name System at IGF-USA in Washington, D.C., Oct. 2, 2009.
Greg Aaron, key account management and domain security for Afilias, said malware is the most prevalent and dangerous problem on the Internet. Another problem, though it is also considered a blessing, is that no one owns the Internet, which means that no one is in charge.
Criminals always seem a step ahead, said Alexa Raad, CEO of Public Interest Registry and board chair of the Registry Internet Safety Group (RISG). Everyone should stop looking after just his or her piece of the pie, Raad said, and instead focus on taking responsibility for other sections.
More inventive forms of fraud are being unleashed on the Web, particularly against social networks, Fred Felman said. Felman is the chief marketing officer for MarkMonitor.
Malicious behavior is an abuse of trust, said John Berryhill, intellectual property attorney. Trust in one another is not a transitive property.
-Ashley Barnas
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