WhoisXML API Blog

Threat management has grown increasingly complex for most organizations — with more endpoints to secure, new compliance pressures to face, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) to monitor. As a result, several organizations have opted to modify their approach to network security by enlisting the help of managed security service providers (MSSPs).

MSSPs combine different approaches to enhance network reliability, ranging from unified threat management (UTM) to threat intelligence analysis. The majority also implement business continuity (BC) solutions, which are especially crucial in the wake of recent global cyberattacks. To facilitate their programs, they incorporate various tools into their security systems, including traditional firewalls, traffic logs, cyber forensic solutions, and threat data feeds.

While search engine optimization (SEO) experts often advise first-time site owners to use an old domain to gain instant authority on the Web, security professionals would caution that the practice can be risky.

That said, we do think there’s a way for site owners to enjoy the benefits of using old domains with as few risks as possible. In this post, we’ll tell you how knowing the history of a domain’s ownership by using tools like WHOIS History Search can help. But first, let’s take a look at why cybersecurity specialists may have reservations about using old or expired domains.

Cyber attackers continuously enhance their tools, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) to remain undetected for as long as they can while in their targets’ networks. Despite the increased sophistication of attacks, however, old techniques die hard and keep causing extensive damage. Case in point: Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking remains a favored attack type among threat actors.

This post provides reasons why cybercriminals never seem to get tired of launching DNS hijacking attacks. We also take a close look at how cyberspies hijacked entire nations’ domains and provide recommendations to potential targets, notably through the use of tools like DNS Lookup API and IP Geolocation API, so they can avoid the same fate as the victims of the Sea Turtle Cyberespionage Campaign.

“If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked. What’s more, you deserve to be hacked.”
Former American Govt. Official Richard A. Clarke

This statement might evoke sarcasm, but is apt in the contemporary vulnerable cyberspace that’s full of hackers with malicious purposes. The tech-driven economy has made it mandatory for big corporates, as well as small businesses, to leverage digital solutions, but breaches and cybercrimes have become a sheer nightmare for them.

To propagate cyberattacks, threat actors use domain generating algorithm (DGA) as an evasion tactic. This algorithm, executed through various subroutines, involves switching or dropping thousands of domains in seconds.

The relative ease with which cybercriminals can purchase domains in bulk makes it possible for them to accomplish DGA-enabled attacks. Dirt-cheap prices and lack of identity verification enable hackers to own domains while also staying anonymous.

Data breaches continue to plague organizations today. In the first six months of 2019 alone, 3,813 data breaches were recorded, exposing more than 4.1 billion records. This figure translates to more than a 50% increase in victim volume over the past four years. Worse still, three of these recently recorded data breaches made it to the all-time list of top incidents.

Of all these unfortunate events, we decided to take a closer at Equifax’s case. First, because it has been the financial sector’s biggest breach victim to date. Second, because it shows how cybercriminals insist on exploiting every vulnerability there is. It’s indeed possible that malicious entities are now trying to trick victims into disclosing more personally identifiable information (PII) on fake Equifax settlement websites.

Brand consistency is a practice of presenting brand messages in a way that is fully synchronized with your brand’s strategy, mission, and values.

Maintaining brand consistency is easier said than done, especially in the digital environment. So how do you make sure that your brand is presented in the best possible light, consistent with your identity and goals?

Read this guide to find out.

Without consistency, there is no brand – it is as simple as that. You can have millions of dollars in your marketing budget and an amazing, inspiring message, but if you don’t communicate it in a way that’s going to make this message stick around, you’ll be wasting your time and money.

The Typosquatting Data Feed list groups of domains that have been registered on the same day, and whose names are similar to each other within the group. A question might be: why buy such data. Here we illustrate the power of the data set through a very efficient application to detect malicious domains. A simple Python code will be presented to illustrate how it works. Then we will illustrate its efficiency by applying it to the PhishTank data feed, demonstrating that it is capable of revealing a tremendous amount of additional domains.

Detection of malicious domains is an important and hard task in IT security. It is the major ingredient of protection against phishing, malware, botnet activity, etc. The most reliable approach to the problem is the use of blacklists such as PhishTank or URLhaus, where a community or a specialized group of experts publish a list of domains or URLs that are confirmed to be malicious. PhishTank, for instance, is community operated: a number of benevolent activists do a great favor to all of us by checking suspicious domains and reveal their phishing activity.

A blacklist of domains is not only useful for direct use in firewalls or spam filters though. It can also serve as an input for methods that can find additional domains strongly related to the blacklisted ones, thus being suspicious. By “amplification” of a blacklist we mean its extension with such a method. With WhoisXML API’s recently introduced Typosquatting Data Feed such an amplification can be easily achieved. Some of the domains in the original blacklist will turn out to be the “top of the iceberg”: we shall find a relevant set of related domains.