Cyberattack by taking down typo domain name — Verisign thwarts

Court grants temporary restraining order against domain mimicking VerisignDNS.com.

Image of man in black hoodie on black background with the word cybersecurity

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .com domain names, has successfully taken down the domain name VerisignNNS.com, which it states was regarding to be used in a cyber attack on internet infrastructure.

A court granted a temporary restraining order against the unknown owner of the domain and granted Verisign the ability to put the domain in registry hold status, meaning it cannot be used.

The firm stated that the domain was created to deceive users who would otherwise visit or VerisignDNS.com or communicate via email, the domain name for Verisign managed DNS services that are right now being transitioned to Neustar.

Its court filing was originally made under seal and much of it is redacted. Still, the unredacted portion references DNSpionage and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Verisign suspects Russian hackers are behind the domain name registration.

The lawsuit is here (pdf).

Also on the wire