Domain registrars to clean up abusive registrations — Senator threatens

Chairman of Intelligence Committee cites Russian influence efforts in threat to domain registrars.

U.S. Senator Mark R. Warner, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sent letters to five domain name registrars and Verisign today blasting them for their services’ role in facilitating Russian influence campaigns.

The letters were triggered by the “Doppelganger” Russian covert influence network in which Russian operatives registered domains similar to U.S. news organizations to spread misinformation.

Warner sent the letters to Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Newfold Digital, and NameSilo, all of which were identified as providing domain services to the Russian operatives.

He stated that the registrars ought to have been aware of the abuse of its services since of warning signs such as the use of cryptocurrency to purchase domains, heavy reliance on anonymizing infrastructure to access the registration services (counting the use of IPs widely associated with cybercriminal obfuscation network activity), the use of credit cards issued to a U.S. firm “that has significant ties to, and employees based in, Russia,” use of fictitious and poorly-backstopped identities for registrants, and in at least one instance the use of a Russian address.

Warner’s letters ask the registrars and registry to take action leading up to and following to the U.S. election on November 5.

And if they don’t? He threatened to push Congress to regulate domain name registrars:

Given the continued lapses of your industry to address these abuses, I believe Congress may need to evaluate legislative remedies that promote greater diligence across the global domain name ecosystem.

Warner is from Virginia, where .com registry Verisign is located.