Facebook warns about domain names used for phishing

Facebook is concerned about domain names used for phishing. So, the company takes action and announced it filed a lawsuit in Arizona, against Namecheap. According to the social media giant, the domain name registrar aims to deceive people. They do this by misleading users and make them believe those are affiliated with Facebook apps.

Christen Dubois, Director and Associate General Counsel, IP Litigation, stated recently that “These domain names can trick people”. In fact, attackers use them often for phishing, fraud and scams. But attackers try to convince people these are legitimate

The official mentioned that the company regularly scans for domain names and apps that infringe its trademarks. This, he explained, is to protect people from different types of abuse. “We found that Namecheap’s proxy service, Whoisguard, registered or used 45 domain names that impersonated Facebook and our services, such as instagrambusinesshelp.com, facebo0k-login.com and whatsappdownload.site,” he said. According to the official, the company sent notices to Whoisguard between October 2018 and February 2020. Still, despite their obligation to provide information about these infringing domain names, they declined to cooperate.

Tricky domain names

Dubois said that Facebook has taken legal action, mainly avoid these web addresses deceive people. “We filed a similar lawsuit in October 2019 against OnlineNIC, another domain registrar, and its proxy service,” he added. The official said that the company’s goal is to create consequences for those who seek to do harm. Also, he emphasized that the company will continue to take legal actions to protect people from domain name fraud and abuse.

In fact, the company also filed more suits, recently, not only against domain names used for phishing, but also for those that infringe its trademarks. One of the latest was against domain name registrar OnlineNIC. At the same time, Facebook sued OnlineNIC’s privacy/proxy service – ID Shield. They accused the service registered domain names and then pretended those to be affiliated with Facebook. Two of the most eloquent examples were www-facebook-login.com and facebook-mails.com.