ICANN, the global domain name coordinator, an accredited registrar of whose is LiquidNet Ltd – the company behind ResellersPanel, has raised awareness of a global scamming issue regarding domain renewals.

The latest ‘fashion’ among cybercriminals is sending registrants domain name renewal emails, which pretend to be coming from ICANN.

The emails are only aimed at misleading the registrants into giving their financial information on the phishing sites they are redirected to from the emails.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has managed to outline a few common characteristics of the emails sent by scammers:

• The scam email encourages the recipient to click on a link to renew the domain online at an attractively low price.
• The ‘renewal promotion’ email appears to be sent by ICANN. It features ICANN’s branding and logo in the body of the message.
• The fake renewal page that the email leads to also tries to mimic a page managed by ICANN.

While ICANN has initiated a thorough investigation of this aggressive scam campaign, they recommend that registrants also take steps to protect their personal information.

So, if you or your customers receive an email similar to the one described above, you should keep in mind the following notes:

• Any email that offers domain renewal services from ICANN is NOT authentic, since ICANN does not process domain registrations or collect fees from registrants directly. All expiration notifications for resellers are sent on behalf of ResellersPanel and for customers – on behalf of your store name, accordingly.
• Any scam email received should be reported to ICANN immediately via an email to Contractual Compliance at compliance@icann.org. A copy of the scam email is required for maximum investigation results.
• Customers should be encouraged to contact your (our) support team directly for any concerns about the status of their domain name.

To help spread the voice of ICANN on this critical security concern, we recommend that you communicate the aforementioned measures to your customers through your blogs or social media channels as soon as you can.