June 30, 2008 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – The websites of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) have been hacked, it was reported recently. Visitors to certain pages were redirected to an atspace.com (http://www.atspace.com/) account where they were greeted by the following message: "You think that you control the domains but you don't! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don't you believe us?"
ICANN and IANA are both integral to the management of domains and the Internet, and the fact that hackers were able to penetrate their security is a major concern at all levels of the Internet community. The hackers, who call themselves “NetDevilz” and bill themselves as a “loveable Turkish hacker’s group”, have been involved in a number of high profile hacks, including Photobucket and porn site, RedTube.com.
The breach has come at a very sensitive time for ICANN, who recently announced that generic domain names would be available to the public in the near future. This means that rather than being bound by traditional suffixes such as .com, .net or .org, or country-based suffixes like .us and .cc (China), those registering domain names will be able to add any suffix they want, including using symbols from other languages in domains. Thus www.web.hosting, www.web.host, as well as www.хозяин.сети (“web host” in Russian) could all be plausible. The move could generate an explosion in domain name registrations, providing several additional logistical and security challenges for organizations that lost control of its websites to hackers.
