Soca: we must stamp out DNS abuse

Law enforcers are under-resourced, according to Soca's Paul Hoare

A leading figure in Soca’s e-crime directorate admitted today that the agency is hampered by a lack of resources and disparate legal frameworks, and outlined that engagement with industry bodies is crucial to success in preventing DNS crime.

Speaking at the annual e-Crime Congress event in London, Soca senior manager Paul Hoare told delegates that any global law enforcement successes had been “in spite of” rather than "thanks to" the current landscape, in which “multiple jurisdictions, lack of common legal frameworks and a tiny numbers of skilled officers” all hamper efforts.

“We must ensure we create a climate of fear, where the criminals understand we will find them and prosecute them,” he said. “Hard as this is for me to say…we have neither the resources nor the infrastructure to lock them all up. To effectively reduce harm, the inequality of arms in the e-crime arena needs fundamental change.”

Hoare explained that DNS abuse, including false registrations, domain hijacking, cache poisoning and fast flux techniques, lies at the heart of many of the crimes his unit investigates, enabling “trademark abuse and fraudulent activity”.

He said that Soca has been engaging with Icann and Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) over the past two years to “remove the enablers to crime”, by tightening up domain registration standards. Hoare explained that nearly 30 million domain names exist today with untraceable registrations.

While good practice exists in some areas, notably the work of Nominet to develop an “effective ethical policy”, this tends to “disperse the criminals to the registries with less good practices”, he argued.

To combat this, Soca has been heavily involved in lobbying for a “minimum standard for registrations” – amendments to Icann’s Registrar Accreditation Agreement that are currently working their way through the internet oversight body.

As well as highlighting the importance of law enforcers working with internet industry bodies, he also encouraged delegates at the conference to "embrace" the likes of Icann so that they contribute to the policy-making process and make their voice heard.