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Israeli registrar denies “arms dealer” claims

Kevin Murphy, July 28, 2020, 20:10:36 (UTC), Domain Registrars

Israeli registrar GalComm has denied being involved in a widespread malware distribution scheme after being fingered by a security outfit.

Last month Awake Security accused the registrar, officially Communigal Communication Ltd, of being “at best complicit in malicious activity”.

The firm published a report entitled “The Internet’s New Arms Dealers: Malicious Domain Registrars” which linked GalComm to a network of malicious Chrome browser extensions the firm said can steal sensitive data from users who have them installed.

It identified 111 such plug-ins, which it said have been downloaded 33 million times, using over 15,000 domains registered via GalComm.

GalComm has around 48,000 domains registered in gTLDs at the last count, so that’s a sizable percentage of the registrar’s business.

Awake came to the conclusion that GalComm was well-aware of what its customers were up to.

Now, the registrar has sent a cease-and-desist notice to Awake, CC’d to ICANN (pdf), in which it denies all knowledge and responsibility for the malware.

GalComm’s line, to summarize, is that it’s just a registrar, and that it has no obligation to monitor how its customers use their domains.

It adds that the domains in question amount to 10% of its DUM. Still a pretty big chunk.

The company wants Awake to retract its report by today, which it has not yet done, or it will call in the lawyers.

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Comments (5)

  1. Namesilo was doing the exact same thing for some time with breonnataylor.com

    They zero-click parked it with parkingcrew.

    I called them out, then they changed it back.

    • OHH parklogic

      sry…sounds the same.

      Anyways yea, namesilo was dying to see how much $ they could make by promoting *actual scams*

      while stealing the domain, suggesting it was promoting scams!

    • Here’s some PROOF incase anyone wants to come call me a liar and question MY intergity or mental capacity.

      We’re dealing with REAL shitbags here.

      Don’t bother me unless you know wtf you’re looking at. I know domainers have a hard time accepting facts. SHAME.

      https://361856-1125667-1-raikfcquaxqncofqfm.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/screencapture-whoisrequest-history-2020-07-28-16_37_38.png

    • Black Lives Matter says:

      What are you talking about you called them out?? There was a whole thread about this on NamePros. They did the right thing taking down the domain because breonnataylor.com was pointing to a fundraiser for the police department that f***en killed her!! Good on NameSilo for acting responsibly and showing some basic morality for a change.
      It’s not a slippery slope… they’re not just seizing domains randomly.

      Also, I read that they donated 10k to the charity, so who cares if they made a couple of bucks from parking. But I choose to believe them when they say it was a bug.

  2. NameSilo says:

    Hi,

    This was a simple bug on our end where the domain ended up in our internal pool of domains and was auto changed to the parking logic. The accusation that we would change this page to a parking page on purpose is baseless and nonsensical.

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