On Thursday, a group of hackers defaced the pages of ICANN's website, and launched a phishing scam that spoofed the organization's site that hit thousands of inboxes across the country. A Turkish group known as "NetDevilz", who have been linked to 31 attacks this year alone, hijacked icann.com, icann.net, iana.com, and iana-servers.com - all sites which belong to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

The defaced pages replaced content with the group's name, and the message "You think that you control the domains but you don't! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don't believe us? haha :) (Lovable Turkish hackers group.)"

The phishing attack was launched a few days before the defacement, and targeted domain owners. The emails contained the following message:

>Dear Domain Account Holder,
>
>You are being sent this notice from ICANN due to the fact that you
>currently own an active domain name. ICANN is currently upgrading all
>domains from their registry database.
>
>The upgrade will introduce new control options for your domain and easier
>access. The new upgrade is required by the registry. All domain users are
>expected to submit their domain information manually at
>http://www.icannresolve.com/[spoofed site name removed] with the
>required information for ICANN to apply the required updates.
>
>The upgrades will be applied to accounts on a first come, first serve
>basis. You have until July 25, 2008 to submit the required information to
>avoid service and domain interruption.
>
>Thank you for your time.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>ICANNResolve
>ICANN.org Resolutions Department

The site which they spoofed contained blank fields for harvesting user info. It has since been removed.

Phishing attacks happen all the time. Don't believe me? Check your spam folder in your email. I know if I looked right now I could probably find half a dozen PayPal scams and various other bank phishing scams. To help protect yourself from falling victim to one of these types of scams, it's a good idea to read this excellent article about phishing techniques, "Phishing Scams Exposed".

Get informed, and know what to look for so you don't fall victim to one of these scams.