News

Our team just published new research on identifying URL shortening services in the wild! Accurately recognizing these services helps avoid misattribution when short URLs show up in phishing reports. This reduces unnecessary investigations for registrars and registries and helps keep mitigation efforts focused on the malicious destination URLs.

We are attending ACM CCS 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan to present our paper on the driving factors behind phishing domain registrations. This work builds on the INFERMAL report and investigates the preferences of malicious actors when registering domain names - an important step towards understanding and mitigating DNS abuse. If you are attending CCS, feel free to stop by and say hello.

We will be giving a webinar on Extended DNS Errors (EDE) as part of the ICANN Technical Training Europe series. The webinar will cover key aspects of this recently proposed standard and present our research on EDE deployment in the wild.

When: September 10, 2025, 12:00–12:45 UTC

Great to see our colleague, Youssef Abyaa, presenting at the Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity (WTMC) during IEEE Euro S&P earlier this week! In his talk, he showcased how to leverage BIMI to build a validated dataset of brands, domain names, and logos.

We’re pleased to share that our Cybersecurity Researcher Yevheniya Nosyk has been selected as a new co-chair of the RIPE DNS Working Group.

Maciej Korczyński will present the results of the INFERMAL project, funded by ICANN and executed by KOR Labs. The project uncovered the preferences of cyberattackers when registering domains, and developed strategies to balance legitimate use with abuse prevention.

Dr. Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob from ICANN will present the recently concluded INFERMAL project during the Security Working Group session at RIPE 90. The project focused on analyzing maliciously registered domain names to uncover cyber attackers' preferences and identify potential measures to mitigate abusive activities in the domain name space.

RIPE 90 will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 12-16, 2025, bringing together operators, researchers, and professionals from across the service region.

We are excited to announce our support for the 10th International Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity (WTMC 2025), set to take place in Venice, Italy, on June 30, 2025. The event, co-located with the IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy, will bring together experts from academia and industry to explore cutting-edge research in cybersecurity seen from the traffic measurements perspective.

As a supporter, we are committed to advancing the field of cybersecurity and facilitating conversations on traffic measurements, network anomalies, and the role of emerging technologies like generative AI in both cyber defense and attacks. We look forward to engaging with the brightest minds in the industry and contributing to the development of innovative cybersecurity solutions.

KOR Labs will present key findings from the INFERMAL project during a two-hour ICANN webinar on February 19 at 15:00 UTC. Led by Prof. Maciej Korczyński (KOR Labs) and coordinated by Dr. Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob (ICANN), the session will include a presentation followed by an interactive Q&A session. The webinar presents a valuable opportunity for stakeholders to gain insights into the complexities of malicious activities within the registration landscape.