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Latest Webjacking: Internet.com
- From: Paul Howell
- Date: Tue Jun 06 06:33:38 2000
At http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36783,00.html
Latest Webjacking: Internet.com
Reuters
3:05 p.m. Jun. 5, 2000 PDT
NEW YORK -- Online trade magazine Internet.com said
Monday its Internet domain name was "hijacked" when
someone illegally transferred ownership on several of its
domain addresses, Chief Executive Alan Meckler told
Reuters.
Several "whois" databases, which track domain ownership,
listed the owner of the Internet.com domain as BCS Inc.
based in Montreal, and listed Toronto-based domain
registrar TUCOWS.com Inc. as the registrar of record.
"We are shocked by the whole thing," Meckler said. "We
don't know if we were hacked or Network Solutions was
hacked."
Meckler said the company learned of the transfer Sunday
night, but said neither the content of the website nor the
site's traffic have been affected.
The situation is under investigation, Network Solutions
spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy said, adding that the
company is working with Internet.com to resolve the
discrepancy as quickly as possible.
According to Darryl Green, manager of business
development at TUCOWS.com, the perpetrator was able
to get an unauthorized change of administrative contact
from Network Solutions, which was then used to transfer
the registrar of record to TUCOWS.com.
At that point, the individual was able to transfer
ownership to BCS Inc., which is presumed to be a fake
identity.
Green said TUCOWS.com is currently working with Network
Solutions to transfer ownership of the domain address
back to Internet.com.
With the growth of the number of registered names,
incidents of "spoofing" have taken place with individuals
spoofing a name and then going to a competitive registrar
to transfer domains there, a source close to the matter
said.
Meckler said Network Solutions, the top Internet
domain-name registrar with more than 15 million registered
addresses, assured him that a block had been placed on
the Internet.com's other registered domain names and
that they could not be sold or transferred.
He said the FBI has been contacted about the theft and
the company also intends to contact legal authorities.
Last week Indonesian site Bali.com and Web.net, a
Canadian hosting site for charities, both had their domain
addresses "kidnapped" by an unknown thief who
transferred registration to a fake name.
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