MalwareTeks Blog

ICANN (InternetCorporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that ending the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) with EstDomains would go ahead as planned, despite the registrar’s appeal.

On 28 October 2008, ICANN sent a notice of termination to EstDomains, Inc. (EstDomains) based on an Estonian Court record reflecting the conviction of EstDomains’ then president, Vladimir Tsastsin, of credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery.

ICANN received a response from EstDomains on 29 October in which it indicated that the Estonian Court record on which ICANN relied was not final and had been appealed. ICANN pended the termination of EstDomains’ RAA to analyze the claims made by EstDomains and to obtain independent information regarding the status of the alleged appeal.

On 7 November 2008, EstDomains was informed that, based on ICANN’s findings, ICANN was proceeding with the termination of EstDomains’ RAA, effective 24 November 2008.

EstDomains manages approximately 281,000 domain names.

Say goodbye to a large chuck on domains engaged in malware distribution.  That is the second victory over Cyber criminals in a period of less than a week.  First McColo has the plug pulled by it’s providers and now EstDomains will lose its accreditation.

Original notice of termination:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-tsastsin-28oct08-en.pd f [PDF,77K]

EstDomains response to notice of termination:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/poltev-to-burnette-29oct08-en.pdf  [PDF, 857K]

Letter to EstDomains concerning decision to proceed with termination:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/burnette-to-poltev-07nov08-en.pdf  [PDF, 57K]

The volume of Internet Junk Mail plummets drastically when McColo Corp., a California based Hosting Company, has it’s access to the Internet cut-off by Internet Providers.

Experts claim that McColo Corp., based in San Jose, California, was responsible for coordinating roughly 75% of all spam sent daily.  On Tuesday, November 11th, e-mail security firm IronPort saw a drop of almost 2/3 of overall spam volume. While they were investigating what they thought might be a technical problem, it was discovered that a major spam network, McColo Corp., was shutdown.

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There has been some interesting developments with Enigma Software Group, Inc of late. First a corporate name change to City Loan, Inc; and now new developments on their web site.

Is this a simple case of hacking?

Coverage at the Certifiedbug.com Blog:
Enigma software, have they been hacked, or…
Enigma of enigma software

Coverage at Vitalsecurity.org:
Scan your entire computer to detect…..wait, what…

Enigma has a somewhat controversial past:
Enigma Software, A Mystery?
Enigma Software Group did it again?
Anti-Spyware 101: Another Site Pushing SpyHunter
SpyHunter, should this be listed as a Rogue Anti-Spyware Application?
411-spyware.com - The new forum spammers?
Spyware Help: Intent Matters Alot:Part 2
I’m on it, Get on it, The troops are on fire

EDIT: Added link to write up by PaperGhost over at Vitalsecurity.org

In May 2007, Bellvue, Wash.-based Zango, a company that makes software to serve pop-up ads and tracks users’ activities on behalf of online marketers, sued Kaspersky, charging that the company interfered with its business by removing its “adware” without first alerting the user. Kaspersky is hardly alone in classifying Zango’s software as

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