Maintainers of new generic top level domains have a hard time keeping abuse in check

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that have sprung up in recent years have become a magnet for cybercriminals, to the point where some of them host more malicious domains than legitimate ones.

Spamhaus, an organization that monitors spam, botnet and malware activity on the Internet, has published a list of the world’s top 10 “worst TLDs” on Saturday. What’s interesting is that the list is not based on the overall number of abusive domains hosted under a TLD, but on the TLD’s ratio of abusive domains compared to legitimate ones.

Over the years, lists of spam-friendly top level domains have typically had .com, .net and .org at the top. However, a TLD’s trustworthiness ultimately relies on the ability of the organization that manages it — known as the registry — to police its name space and to enforce rules for its resellers, the registrars.

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