The Rise of Phishing Attacks: How New Domain Extensions Are Fueling Cyber Crime

A high-level overview highlights a nearly 40% year-over-year surge in phishing, driven disproportionately by abuse of cheap new gTLDs (e.g., .shop, .top, .xyz), which comprise 11% of registrations but 37% of reported cybercrime domains, and by malicious use of subdomains on services like blogspot.com and weebly.com. The piece criticizes the expansion of gTLDs without stricter registrar policies and identity verification, urging stronger registration controls, better cooperation across the domain ecosystem, and user caution with unfamiliar domains.