Two weeks ago, the Google Registry opened the domain floodgates with no less than 8 new gTLDs: .dad, .phd, .prof, .esq, .foo, .zip, .mov, and .nexus.
You can read about who is being targeted with each new gTLD from Google and the news isn’t how these gTLDs should be used, but rather how they shouldn’t be used.
While .dad and .phd appear to be harmless, .mov and .zip are already used to perform phishing, as they are valid file extensions, for movie and zip files respectively. Internet users are inherently familiar with such extensions in Windows or MacOS and their guard might be lowered, when encountering such “.mov” and “.zip” believing they are files, when in fact they are domain names!
Google Registry’s new .zip and .mov domains can be abused
It’s quite common that someone may incorporate a zip file and name somewhere in an email, but it’ll no longer be clear if it’s a file name or a domain name linked to a web site.
Take FinancialStatement.zip for example, a sample web site demonstrating how the new gTLDs can be abused. It contains sample links that show how the new gTLDs approved by ICANN and operated by the Google Registry can be used to deliver harmful content.
Perhaps .mov and .zip will become two of the most abused and blocked gTLDs in the coming weeks and months.
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