Cybercriminals angling to use Internet addresses ending in .eu for phishing or scamming purposes will now have to contend with new technology designed to block such attempts.
The technology has been developed by the University of Leuven (KULeuven) and EURid, a registry that manages “.eu” domain names.
Over 3.6 million individuals and companies already have “.eu” domain names, a few of which are owned by dishonest individuals. As the association mandated by the European Union to take charge of the .eu domain name, EURid has worked for five years with KULeuven on a new system based on artificial intelligence.
"We have already checked past registrations against the blacklists,” KU Leuven IT expert Lieven Desmet said. “We’ve learned to register suspicious addresses.”
The system blocks suspicious recordings even before they automatically become activated and begin creating havoc. This phase is followed by an additional ID check run on the pending operation. By that time, the scammer often does not bother to continue.
"It is therefore increasingly difficult to do an identification,” Lieven Desmet explained.
The system has been involved in registering addresses since early December, and other domain-name managers are already interested in the way it is used, Desmet said.
The Brussels Times
