Experts have warned that when non-Roman script domain names are allowed next year, cyber thieves may find themselves with fresh opportunities. In 2010, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will allow domain names in scripts other than Roman. Whilst this will open the internet for many who are not familiar with Roman scripts and find them difficult, it could offer criminals a wealth of new opportunities for email and phishing scams.
Arnold & Porter’s intellectual property lawyer Simon Bennett said “With Cyrillic, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese scripts now possible, this threatens to be like a hydra. You cut off one head and another grows in its place. They (Icann) seem to have started the process of allowing people to register domain names in non-Roman characters but don’t seem to have put in place anything that obligates any registry to safeguard trademark rights or the rights of legitimate businesses that use the same name. There’s going to be a lot more scope for people to take advantage. Icann just doesn’t think these things through properly.”
Elsewhere, MarkMonitor’s Charlie Abrahams agreed with the warning. “The risk for general brand abuse is going to increase exponentially. It’s difficult enough in English,” explained Mr Abrahams who monitors trademark abuse for brands appearing online. “At present, most e-mail phishing does not use anything that resembles the real site name. We could see the level of sophistication in phishing attacks increased by the use of foreign languages.”
