Domain Resale Marketplaces Selling Phishing Scammers' Dream Names

[mandy]

Domain names likely to appeal to fraudsters are up for grabs on domain resale sites.

Firms such as Sedo and Moniker specialise in the sale of domain names that have already been registered and are now being resold in the secondary (or aftermarket) for domain names...

However, Finish security firm F-Secure has discovered that alongside the sale of such innocuous domains as filmlist.com comes the resale of domains that obviously belong to banks or other financial institutions. Sedo.com, for example, is reselling domains like chasebank-online.com, citi-bank.com and bankofameriuca.com. "Why would anybody want to buy these domains unless they are the bank themselves - or a phishing scammer?", F-Secure asks...

full article: http://www.theregister.com/2006/10/31/do...le_market/

Internet addresses that appeal to identity thieves eager to rip off consumers are being posted by major domain resellers, a security company charged Friday.

"Why would anybody want to buy these domains unless they are the bank themselves -- or a phishing scammer?" wrote Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief research officer, in an alert on the company's site.

In its search of Sedo, F-Secure also found domain names for resale that use the accent characters "" and "" in place of the normal "a" or "i" to create "highly deceptive" URLs like vsa.com, p'ypal.com, and payp'l.com...

full article: http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml...=193402987

There's a very active aftermarket in domain names. These are domain names that have already been registered and are now being resold. For example, hell.com and auction.com are being auctioned today to the highest bidders and they are expected to be sold for several million dollars each.

But most domain names are resold for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars (where the original registration price is typically $5 to $15)...

There's nothing wrong in reselling cool domains like tractors.com, filmlist.com or 4fares.com to anyone who wants to buy them.

But how about reselling domains that obviously belong to banks or other financial institutions?...

full article: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/...l#00001008