[lbo-talk] Lapse at Melbourne IT Enabled Panix.com Hijacking

[Dwayne Monroe]

Domain registrar Melbourne IT today acknowledged that it failed to 
properly confirm a transfer request for Panix.com, allowing the domain 
for the New York ISP to be hijacked for most of the weekend. The Panix 
incident has focused attention on recent ICANN rule changes that allow 
domains to be transferred more easily, which some registrars warned 
would also make it easier to hjack domains.

The hijacking disabled all email and Internet access for thousands of 
Panix customers, and persisted despite active efforts by the North 
American Network Operators Group (NANOG) to assist Panix in recovering 
the domain. The delays were blamed on unresponsiveness by several 
providers within the domain management system, but especially Melbourne 
IT, which appears to have no readily-accessible support on weekends. The 
Panix.com hijacking was not reversed until Melbourne IT's offices opened 
in Australia Monday morning (late Sunday in New York).

"There was an error in the checking process prior to initiating the 
transfer, and thus the transfer should never have been initiated," Bruce 
Tonkin, the chief technology officer of Melbourne IT wrote in a message 
to the NANOG mailing list. "The loophole that led to this error has been 
closed." Tonkin did not describe the "loophole" but said the transfer of 
the domain from Dotster to Melbourne IT was initiated through an account 
at a Melbourne IT reseller, which was set up using stolen credit cards. 
"That reseller is analysing its logs and cooperating with law 
enforcement," he wrote.

[...]

full at --

<http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/01/18/lapse_at_melbourne_it_enabled_panixcom_hijacking.html 

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