Security experts are poring over thousands of new Coronavirus-themed domain names registered each day, but this often manual effort struggles to keep pace with the flood of domains invoking the virus to promote malware and phishing sites, as well as non-existent healthcare products and charities. As a result, domain name registrars are under increasing pressure to do more to combat scams and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By most measures, the volume of new domain registrations that include the words “Coronavirus” or “Covid” has closely tracked the spread of the deadly virus. The Cyber Threat Coalition (CTC), a group of several thousand security experts volunteering their time to fight COVID-related criminal activity online, recently published data showing the rapid rise in new domains began in the last week of February, around the same time the Centers for Disease Control began publicly warning that a severe global pandemic was probably inevitable.