Domain Registrar Shut Down

An important part of cybercrime is having web names that can be used for phishing.

EstDomains was an ICANN domain registrar that had 281,000 registered domain names. .EstDomains CEO Vladimir Tsastsin was convicted in February of credit card fraud, document forgery and money laundering. EstDoamins was widely used by criminals to register domain names used in cybercrimes.

ICANN is currently accepting statements of interest from registrars who might be willing to take on EstDomains' former clients. It’s unlikely any legitimate registrar will be willing to accept transfers of domains from EstDomains.

EstDomains was brazen in its operations yet it still was able to register 281,000 names before being closed down.Will closing EstDomains have any real impact on controlling cybercriminals? Clearly, the answer is no.

Cybercriminals are already spreading domain registrations among honest registers where the domains get lost among the millions of registrations used for honest businesses. The cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of lax registration requirements and holes in internet security to continue their profitable illegal business operations.