WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — AI-driven web security company DNSFilter (www.dnsfilter.com) released its annual Domain Threat Report. Their research spans March 2020 through August 2021, but they found more than the COVID pandemic impacted end users’ interaction with malicious sites. They identified trends among sites related to cryptocurrency, unemployment, and more.

DNSFilter blocks threats in real-time at the DNS level, stopping access to malicious domains. The information collected in DNSFilter’s 2021 Domain Threat Report is backed by their proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) known as Webshrinker.

DNSFilter CEO Ken Carnesi writes the foreword of the threat report and notes, “2021 was the first time we truly took stock of this DNS data and recognized that sharing it will help others secure their IT infrastructure.” Carnesi believes “this report will assist organizations better understand the current, rapidly evolving, domain landscape and make better decisions when it comes to enabling DNS security.”

COVID-19, Cryptocurrency, and China—Findings from the report

According to the report, 11.47% of COVID-related queries during the pandemic were malicious—that’s more than 1-in-10. Although media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic has recently waned, the opportunity for malicious domains capitalizing on COVID-related searches continues. The shape these threats have taken has changed, with unemployment scams (a result of pandemic benefits) in mid-2021 surging.

Cryptomining has also had a resurgence over the last year as blockchain technology and NFTs rise in popularity. Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Litecoin are more likely to be cryptomining sites, while copycat domains of Bitcoin are more likely to be phishing. 18.72% of cryptomining sites actively include terms relating to “mining” or “coin.” These sites are not necessarily hiding their intentions.

Other trends noted in this year’s report shed light on the geographic location of malicious domains. One of the more interesting findings was China is responsible for 16.69% of all malware queries on DNSFilter’s network. However, four out of five of the ccTLDs (Country-code Top-Level Domains) with…