Author: Aurélie Tran

Marketing service - Nameshield

Nameshield will be at the 38th Annual Marques Conference – From September 24 to 27, 2024 in Stockholm

Nameshield will be at the 38th Marques Annual Conference

Join the Nameshield team at the 2024 Annual Marques Conference, taking place from September 24 to 27, 2024 at the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel in Stockholm.

Nameshield is an ISO27001-certified software publisher and sovereign registrar, with 30 years of experience, that protects and defends its customers’ strategic domain names against cyber threats.

We consider that protecting online brands is more crucial than ever in the face of an increasing number of infringements, including:

  • Cybersquatting, which can damage brands’ reputations and mislead customers,
  • Fraud and scams, where similar domain names are used to create fraudulent websites, counterfeiting or fake shops,
  • Customer diversion, which redirects customers to competitors or malicious sites and trigger the loss of customers’ confidence in the brand, and in turn, the loss of revenue.

Nameshield has consequently developed a Brand Safety Chain (BSC) solution in order to shield brands’ safety, integrity, reputation and revenue in the digital ecosystem, with:

  • Continuous domain name monitoring and detection of fraudulent domain names,
  • Remediation services and support on the best action plan and procedures to implement.
  • Anti fake shop solutions, including detection, analysis reports and takedowns.

Come and meet us at stand 7.

Our team of trademark and intellectual property experts will be there to answer all of your questions.

For more information, please visit the event website : 2024 Marques Annual Conference.

Phishing, slamming and other fraudulent e-mails: Stay alert during the end-of-year holidays!

Phishing, slamming and other fraudulent e-mails: Stay alert during the end-of-year holidays!

The end-of-year holidays often announce the upsurge of fraudulent mass e-mails campaigns. Indeed, cybercriminals take advantage of this period, when vigilance can be particularly low, to launch phishing e-mails.

What are phishing and slamming?

Phishing is used by cybercriminals to obtain personal information in order to commit an identity theft.

In the world of phishing, slamming is a well-known variant that consists in encouraging domain names holders to renew their annuity with another registrar, by arguing the emergency and criticality of the concerned name’s loss. Concretely, this is an e-mail pushing its recipient to contract an unsolicited service and to proceed to the payment of this latter without delay.

Thus, the slamming may take the form of a fraudulent renewal invoice, usually associated with intimidating terms like “Expiration notice”. Under the pressure of such e-mail, generally well built, it happens that the recipient then proceeds to the payment and finds himself debited with an important amount for the so-called renewal.

In the same way, the slamming e-mail may also indicate that a “customer” of the sender, posing as a fake registrar, intends to register domain names identical or similar to your brand. Then the fraudster proposes to register them for you in order to protect you from these troublesome registrations, of course, in exchange for an urgent payment.

Another kind of attack, the suspicious e-mail attachment!

Be careful of fraudulent e-mails with infectious attachments: a single entry point is enough to destroy a network!

The aim of a trap and thus malicious attachment is to pose as a legitimate file (PDF, Word document, JPG image…), while hosting and hiding a malicious code: this is what we generally call Trojans.

Some simple rules to protect against them

  • Always stay alert when someone asks you your personal data;
  • Do not ever open an attachment from an unknown sender, or from one who is not entirely trustworthy;
  • Check the links by hovering the cursor over them (without clicking) to ensure that they link to trustworthy websites;
  • Never reply under the pressure of this kind of solicitation and of course do not proceed to any payment;
  • If there is any doubt, do not reply to the e-mail and contact the sender through another method who will confirm whether it really is a fraud attempt or not.

To remind you of this more often, you can find a wallpaper to download on the Nameshield website:

Download the wallpaper

Image credits : Nameshield with storyset.com

.FR: Increased unaided awareness among French VSEs and SMEs

In October 2023, Afnic, the French Association for Cooperative Internet Naming, which manages the .fr domain, carried out a survey on the perception of .fr among 502 tradespersons, retailers or VSE/SME managers selected on the basis of company size. Here are the results of the survey:

  • For 70.9% of French VSEs and SMEs, the .fr extension is spontaneously cited, that’s 6.2 points more than in 2022, ahead of .com (69.1%) and .org (20.5%).
  • 61% of French VSEs and SMEs consider that .fr has a very good reputation (that’s 11 points higher than .com) and 38% consider it to have a fairly good reputation.
  • And finally, for 88% of French VSEs and SMEs, .fr is perceived as the extension that enables them to promote French expertise in France and abroad.

For more information and to register your .FR domain name, don’t hesitate to contact a Nameshield consultant.

Image source : AFNIC

[New gTLDs] Google launches .ING and .MEME

[New gTLDs] Google launches .ING and .MEME

Google enriches its catalog as a registry and launches two new extensions: .ING and .MEME.

Launch of .ING

With .ing, unleash your creativity and put your domain names into action: design.ing, writ.ing, lov.ing, eat.ing…

.ING launch schedule

  • Sunrise phase: from 20/09/2023 to 24/10/2023

Phase reserved for holders of trademarks registered in the TMCH.

  • Early Access Period (EAP): from 31/10/2023 to 05/12/2023

Anyone can register available domains in .ing for an extra fee, which decreases leading up to General Availability.

  • General availability: as of 05/12/2023

Registration of .ing domain names is open to all, on a “first come, first served” basis.

Launch of .MEME

Funny and easy to share, “memes” are phenomena that have been massively reproduced and adapted, and are driving the web today. With .meme, use the codes of web culture for your online presence.

.MEME launch schedule

  • Sunrise phase: from 20/09/2023 to 24/10/2023

Phase reserved for holders of trademarks registered in the TMCH.

  • Limited Registration Period (LRP): from 31/10/2023 to 28/11/2023

Reserved for content creators specializing in the creation and distribution of Internet memes.

  • Early Access Period (EAP): from 28/11/2023 to 05/12/2023

Anyone can register available domains in .meme for an extra fee, which decreases leading up to General Availability.

  • General availability: as of 05/12/2023

Registration of .meme domain names is open to all, on a “first come, first served” basis.

If you have any questions about registering your .ING or .MEME domain name, please contact your Nameshield consultant.

Nameshield’s DNS Premium labelled France Cybersecurity

The digital transformation of companies creates an increasing dependence on networks.

Websites, emails, VPN, applications… these company key services must remain accessible. An interruption would be dramatic.

DNS is the access point to all these services. It translates domain names into IP addresses and routes traffic to these services. It is increasingly exposed to attacks, yet remains poorly secured due to a lack of knowledge. With the increase in threats, maintaining its DNS infrastructure is becoming more and more complex.

Securing strategic domain names by hosting them on highly secure DNS offering permanent availability, to avoid any interruption to company key services, has become a necessity.

Nameshield, certified ISO 27001 on all its registrar activities, protects companies’ critical digital services against cyber threats, and proposes a DNS Premium solution that ensures high availability of online services.

Nameshield’s DNS Premium has been labelled France Cybersecurity since 2018. This label is a guarantee for users that Nameshield’s products and services present a level of quality in cybersecurity verified by an independent jury.

“Cybersecurity is at the heart of Nameshield’s DNA, through its CERT and ISO 27001 certification. In a sector dominated by American players, this label is the perfect way to highlight our sovereign solutions such as DNS Premium“, Christophe Gérard, Nameshield’s Products Director.

Find out more about our DNS Premium solution

Phishing, slamming and other fraudulent e-mails: stay alert during the summer holidays!

Phishing, slamming and other fraudulent e-mails: stay alert during the summer holidays!

Every year, the summer holidays announce the upsurge of fraudulent e-mails mass campaigns. Indeed, cybercriminals try to profit from these periods when the vigilance is sometimes lowering, to launch phishing e-mails.

What are phishing and slamming?

Phishing is used by cybercriminals to obtain personal information in order to commit an identity theft.

In the world of phishing, slamming is a well-known variant that consists in encouraging domain names owners to renew their annuity with another registrar, by arguing the emergency and criticality of the concerned name’s loss. Concretely, this is an e-mail pushing its recipient to contract an unsolicited service and to proceed to the payment of this latter without delay.

Thus, the slamming can take the form of a fraudulent renewal bill, generally associated with intimidating terms like “Expiration notice”. Under the pressure of such e-mail, in general well built, it happens that the recipient then proceeds to the payment and is debited of an important amount for the so-called renewal.

In the same way, the slamming e-mail indicates that a “customer” of the sender posing as a fake registrar, wants to register domain names identical or similar to your brand. Then the fraudster proposes to register them for you in order to protect you from these troublesome registrations, of course, in exchange for an urgent payment.

Another kind of attack, the suspicious e-mail attachment!

Be careful of fraudulent e-mails with infectious attachments: a single entry point is enough to destroy a network!

The aim of a trap and thus malicious attachment is to pose as a legitimate file (PDF, Word document, JPG image…), while hosting and hiding a malicious code: this is what we generally call Trojans.

Some simple rules to protect against them

  • Always stay alert when someone asks you your personal data;
  • Do not ever open an attachment from an unknown sender, or from one who is not entirely trustworthy;
  • Check the links by hovering the cursor over them (without clicking) to ensure that they link to trustworthy websites;
  • Never reply under the pressure of this kind of solicitation and of course do not proceed to any payment;
  • If there is any doubt, do not reply to the e-mail and contact the sender through another method who will confirm whether it really is a fraud attempt or not.

Find on the Nameshield’s website a wallpaper to download to help you think about it more often.

Download the wallpaper

The Centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans

The Centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans Race

The weekend of June 10 and 11 marked the Centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s biggest race in endurance car racing. During the entire week, it was possible to attend the practice sessions and numerous events organized in parallel.

The long-awaited Centenary edition lived up to all its promises. Battles in all categories, tension right through to Sunday, and 24 hours later, it was Ferrari who came out on top and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans Race 2023, a victory 58 years after the brand’s last success.

Followed by millions of people, this international event was able to rely on Nameshield’s highly secure DNS infrastructure, offering permanent high availability, for its https://www.24h-lemans.com/ website. Traffic peaked throughout the event, and a record number of tickets sold ensured the success of the 24 Hours of Le Mans Centenary race!

Image source : www.24h-lemans.com

.GA: ANINF takes over the management of Gabon’s national extension

.GA: ANINF takes over the management of Gabon's national extension

On May 30, 2023, ANINF (the National Agency for Digital Infrastructure and Frequencies of the Gabonese Republic) announced that it would be taking over the full management of Gabon’s national extension .GA as of June 3, 2023.

In a country in rapid expansion, this change in governance, decided by the Gabonese authorities, has been in the making for some time, in order to better support .GA domain names holders.

ANINF estimates that there are currently more than 7 million .GA domain names, several million of which are abusively registered. During a technical migration scheduled for June 7, a number of .GA domain names will be deleted for which the previous operator has provided no data. ANINF has chosen to call on AFNIC’s technical expertise to assist it in this transition.

Image source : ANINF’s website

The .COUNTRY registry increases its prices as of September 27, 2023

The .COUNTRY registry increases its prices as of September 27, 2023

The .COUNTRY registry will significantly increase the price for new registrations under this extension from September 27, 2023, 16:00:00 UTC.

All registrations, transfers and renewals of a .COUNTRY domain name registered after September 27, 2023 will be subject to a price increase of 100 times the current price.

This very significant price increase, which has not been explained by the registry, will only apply to domain names registered after this date.

Domain names registered before September 27 can still be renewed at the current price, and will not be affected by the price change.

To protect your brands without being impacted by this price increase, we invite you to register your .COUNTRY domain names as of now.

The Nameshield team is at your disposal for any questions.

Image source : internetnaming.co

The .FR counts today 4 million domain names

Managed by AFNIC (acronym for Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération – French Association for Cooperative Internet Naming, the French Network Information Center), the favorite extension of the French people has reached 4 million registered domain names!

Every week, between 12,000 and 16,000 new .FR domain names are registered. The .FR has become a reference domain, with a market share in France of nearly 40%, which has been growing for several years, particularly thanks to the digital transformation of French VSEs/SMEs. Thus, more than 50% of them have chosen a .FR domain name for their website.

Easy to register and inexpensive, this extension is synonym of trust and recognized for its reliability, with 87% of French people trusting it! For more information and to register your domain name in .FR, do not hesitate to contact a Nameshield consultant.

Image source : site de l’AFNIC