Fake Domain Renewal eMails
Just heard about a new agressive scam going around those of us who have purchased their own domains (http://dragonrider.co.uk for example).
ICANN, the global domain name coordinator, has raised awareness of a global scamming issue regarding domain renewals.
The latest ‘fashion’ among cybercriminals is sending registrants domain renewal emails, which pretend to be coming from ICANN.
The scam emails are only aimed at misleading the registrants into giving their financial information on the phishing sites they are redirected to from the email notifications.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has managed to outline a few common characteristics of the emails sent by scammers:
- The scam email encourages the recipient to click on a link to renew the domain online at an attractively low price.
- The ‘renewal promotion’ email appears to be sent by ICANN. It features ICANN’s branding and logo in the body of the message.
- The fake renewal page that the email leads to also tries to mimic a page managed by ICANN.
The important thing to bear in mind is that ICANN don't renew domains, only YOUR own registrars do that. If you get an email like this, it's a scam!
To help ICANN fight this global scam practice, you can report any scam email you received to [email protected].
A copy of the scam email is required for maximum investigation results.