Microsoft Buys Corp.com So Bad Guys Can’t

[upnorth]

Content source

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/microsoft-buys-corp-com-so-bad-guys-cant/

In February, KrebsOnSecurity told the story of a private citizen auctioning off the dangerous domain corp.com for the starting price of $1.7 million. Domain experts called corp.com dangerous because years of testing showed whoever wields it would have access to an unending stream of passwords, email and other sensitive data from hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Windows PCs at major companies around the globe. This week, Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy the domain in a bid to keep it out of the hands of those who might abuse its awesome power.

The story went on to describe how years of testing — some of which was subsidized by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — showed hundreds of thousands of Windows computers were constantly trying to send this domain information it had no business receiving, including attempts to log in to internal corporate networks and access specific file shares on those networks.

O’Connor told me he was selling the domain after doing basically nothing with it for 26 years because he was getting on in years and didn’t want his kids to inherit this mess. When he put the domain up for sale, I asked if he’d agree to let me know if and when he sold it. On Monday evening, he wrote to say that Microsoft had agreed to purchase it. O’Connor said he could not discuss the terms of the deal, nor could he offer further comment beyond acknowledging the sale of corp.com to Microsoft.

 

[Antus67]

Hats off to Microsoft becoming pro active in protecting the users

 

[blacksheep]

That was easy money for someone.

 

[DJ Panda]

I'm just thinking. Was this some accidental send info to the site? The way I am reading it sounds like it should be illegal similar to people auctioning off people's passwords and whatever. You'd think the government would get one of those letters to shut down a site for copyright and other activities? It's neat that MS did this but it's a little hard to grasp for me.