Latest Webjacking: Internet.com

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36783,00.html

3:05 p.m. Jun. 5, 2000 PDT

NEW YORK -- Online trade magazine Internet.com said Monday its
Internet domain name was "hijacked" when someone illegally transferred
ownership on several of its domain addresses, Chief Executive Alan
Meckler told Reuters.

Several "whois" databases, which track domain ownership, listed the
owner of the Internet.com domain as BCS Inc. based in Montreal, and
listed Toronto-based domain registrar TUCOWS.com Inc. as the registrar
of record.

"We are shocked by the whole thing," Meckler said. "We don't know if
we were hacked or Network Solutions was hacked."

Meckler said the company learned of the transfer Sunday night, but
said neither the content of the website nor the site's traffic have
been affected.

The situation is under investigation, Network Solutions spokesman
Brian O'Shaughnessy said, adding that the company is working with
Internet.com to resolve the discrepancy as quickly as possible.

According to Darryl Green, manager of business development at
TUCOWS.com, the perpetrator was able to get an unauthorized change of
administrative contact from Network Solutions, which was then used to
transfer the registrar of record to TUCOWS.com.

At that point, the individual was able to transfer ownership to BCS
Inc., which is presumed to be a fake identity.

Green said TUCOWS.com is currently working with Network Solutions to
transfer ownership of the domain address back to Internet.com.

With the growth of the number of registered names, incidents of
"spoofing" have taken place with individuals spoofing a name and then
going to a competitive registrar to transfer domains there, a source
close to the matter said.

Meckler said Network Solutions, the top Internet domain-name registrar
with more than 15 million registered addresses, assured him that a
block had been placed on the Internet.com's other registered domain
names and that they could not be sold or transferred.

He said the FBI has been contacted about the theft and the company
also intends to contact legal authorities.

Last week Indonesian site Bali.com and Web.net, a Canadian hosting
site for charities, both had their domain addresses "kidnapped" by an
unknown thief who transferred registration to a fake name.


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