Domain Trust

Building Trust in the Domain Name Ecosystem

The organizations involved in the Domain Trust partnership represent some of the different communities of the domain name ecosystem, including registries and registrars, ISPs, public and private cyber responders, or financial institutions. By sharing information and working together to reduce and, where possible, stop abuse, they help build trust in the domain name system as a whole.

One of the initial outcomes of the Domain Trust project is an information sharing platform that provides actionable data against several forms of domain abuse used by global cybercrime, such as phishing, malware distribution, and command and control activities.

Key Components

Community

Scales multiple data sources to multiple users who are able to take action.

Scale

Identifies common data sets, which allows for wider scale effectiveness.

Trust

Maintains the source and asserted certainty of the data and data submitter.

Transparency

Ranks data according to provider and confidence.

Data Sharing

Provides intelligence sharing and data replication.

Action

Facilitates data to other platforms that can block or suspend criminal sites.

Background

Internet domains are a major vector for cyberattacks. Everyday thousands of domains are registered with the sole intent of conducting criminal activity such as phishing or distributing malware. They are used by criminals and state-sponsored actors to conduct attacks that deliver malware, defraud people, and conduct other illicit activity. Domains can be registered quickly, cheaply, and in bulk allowing cybercriminals to move quickly to keep ahead of detection.

The Domain Trust initiative was launched in November 2020, in the context of the global pandemics of COVID-19 and its impact on our digital lives. GCA, taking advantage of its independence as a neutral, convening party (across countries, industries, and sectors), partnered with a number of organizations with the capacity to take effective action against malicious domains.

Since its inception, the partners in the project have managed to build a solid information-exchange platform with millions of suspected domains. The effort has attracted actors from different sectors, including a significant number of TLDs. Now, as the initiative grows in interoperability and industry representation, it has also started to explore novel concepts such as predictive analytics or self-sovereign identity.

The Domain Trust Community

The Domain Trust project is open to any organization that either has direct access to quality data on domain abuse or is interested in acting on that data. This crosses many existing communities, including:

Registries and Registrars
Internet Service Providers and Network Operators
CERTs, CSIRTs, Law Enforcement, and Cyber Responders
Cyber Analytics Researchers and Service Providers
Financial Institutions and Insurers
eCommerce and Anti Fraud Platforms

Contact Us

If you are working on any project that aims to have an impact on the global issue of domain abuse, please reach out to us. We will be delighted to talk with you and explore possibilities for collaboration.

Contact Us