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.NU Domain Achieves Top Ranking for Robust Anti-Phishing Practices


WorldNames, Inc. (formerly known as .NU Domain Ltd), the Global Manager of the .NU Domain, Receives High Ranking from Independent Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG)


MEDFIELD, MA- May 19, 2011 — WorldNames, Inc., the global manager of the .NU Top Level Domain (TLD), received top ranking for effective anti-phishing take-down practices in April. The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) recognized the technology and policy leader in its report: Global Phishing Survey: Trends and Domain Name Use in 2H2010. This ranking comes as a result of the innovative and effective anti-phishing practices that WorldNames has put into place across the .NU domain over the past several years.

Phishing is a pervasive Internet criminal activity that involves fraudulent spam emails from sites masquerading as legitimate sources, such as banks or financial institutions, in an attempt to acquire sensitive, personal information. The APWG's phishing repository is the Internet's most comprehensive archive, and its most recent data suggest at least 67,677 phishing attacks took place worldwide in the second half of 2010. Furthermore, these attacks took place on 42,624 unique domain names, with concentrated attacks focused on specific TLDs (60 percent of the total occurring on .COM, .CC, .NET, and .ORG). Eighty-nine percent of malicious domain registrations were made across four top-level domains (TLDs) including .COM, .TK, .NET, and .INFO.

The data used to compile the survey results clearly revealed .NU in the top echelon of secure TLDs.  It had one of the lowest incidences of phishing schemes across the namespace (2.5 phishing attacks for every 10,000 domains).  The survey data revealed that whenever WorldNames detected phishing schemes within its network of domains, it shut down these fraudulent sites within just 30 hours of discovering them.

WorldNames implemented these innovative, anti-phishing take-down practices in 2007, making .NU the first TLD to do so. To ensure effective security measures, WorldNames' technical staff continues to monitor .NU's sites 24 hours a day and immediately shuts down any that may present evidence of phishing activities.

"We are excited about .NU's high ranking for security and anti-phishing practices, particularly when compared to other global TLDs, including those in the Northern European as well as the Pacific regions," WorldNames President J. William Semich says. ".NU is proud to have been a trailblazer in the implementation of an innovative take-down system to alert technical teams to potential phishing and fraudulent actions within our namespace.  We continue to closely monitor these activities to ensure .NU remains secure and safe throughout."

About WorldNames, Inc. (formerly known as .NU Domain Ltd)

WorldNames, Inc. is a Massachusetts-based company that registers Internet domains and web addresses through its flagship product, the .NU domain. A country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD), .NU offers a wide range of attention-getting Web addresses in English and European languages. Since its beginnings in 1997, WorldNames, Inc. established itself as a secure, technically proficient and reputable company with important connections between all of the major Internet governing bodies. With domain operations located in the U.S., Sweden and Northern Europe, WorldNames, Inc. also funds the IUSN Foundation (formerly known as the Internet Users Society—Niue), a charitable nonprofit, which is a recognized leader in Internet governance. IUSN funds the Internet and WiFi services, along with related training and education, for the South Pacific island nation of Niue, whose country code domain designation is .NU. To learn more about WorldNames, Inc., visit nunames.nu.