Oman (.OM) ccTLD and Typosquatting
24-Mar-2016
During the past few weeks, we have witnessed an increasing number of registrations and typosquatting cases under the Omani ccTLD (.OM). Typosquatters choice of the .OM TLD is not arbitrary; misspell a .COM domain name and click enter, you might end up at its .OM version, which may contain malware, the case for a leading cloud file hosting service.
While Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) is an ICANN and a .OM accredited registrar, we make sure that all received registration requests for .OM are verified, however, not all registrars follow the same procedures.
Endgame, an Information Security Company has published its research on .OM typosquatting campaign; it has listed over 300 instances of typosquatting cases, and the number might increase overnight. The campaign is targeting 300 well-known organizations, which indicates the aggressive nature of such a campaign.
We have reached out to Oman’s Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), .OM Registry Operator, and they are aware of these incidents. They are currently taking extra measures to avoid similar incidents and to resolve existing ones.
In all cases, we advise our clients to register their brands under the .OM ccTLD to avoid being victim of such campaigns, and if you found out that your brand has been already registered by a third party, please let us know so we can take appropriate action with Oman’s TRA.
Please feel free to contact us at: info@tag-domains.com
Mahmoud Lattouf
Executive Director