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Time For Domains To Get .Safe
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-04-16
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Security firm F-Secure thinks the ICANN board needs to consider a new top level domain (TLD) for banks and financial institutions to help cut down on fraud.
 | | Time For Domains To Get .Safe |  |
A dedicated domain reserved for banks could be the key to stemming non-stop fraud attempts against Internet users. Only registered financial institutions would be able to acquire the special TLD for use with their websites.
Mikko Hyppönen, F-Secure's chief research officer, thinks that such a move would help security companies improve the protection they offer their customers in their products.
"Banks need to take on some of the responsibility for protecting their customers and using a secure domain name such as .safe will give customers the reassurance they need when banking online," Hyppönen said in a statement.
"It's true this will mean banks have to pay a premium to be able to use the domain name, but it will reduce the number of successful phishing sites that have been tricking many customers out of their hard earned cash."
The philosophy here is that unlike the extremely common dot-com TLD, a locked-down TLD like .safe or .sure would be immediately recognizable as a legitimate domain. It wouldn't stop the phishing attacks that take place now, but the presence of a .safe domain would enable security software to recognize a safe or unsafe domain immediately.
Although ICANN recently rejected another proposed TLD, the .xxx for adult sites, a .safe would be far less controversial to consider. The persistence of criminals seeking to defraud people should make .safe a more palatable concept, although ICANN may not want the responsibility of vetting financial sites out of lawsuit fears.
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Tags: ICANN, .Safe, Domains
View All Articles by David Utter
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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