Top-level domain expansion is a security risk for business computers

The explosion of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) in recent years can put enterprise computers at risk due to name conflicts between domain names used inside corporate networks and those that can now be registered on the public Internet.

Many companies have configured their networks to use domain names, in many cases with made-up TLDs that a few years ago didn't used to exist on the Internet, such as .office, .global, .network, .group, .school and many others. Having an internal domain-based namespace makes it easier to locate, manage and access systems.

The problem is that over the past two years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved over 900 gTLDs for public use as part of an expansion effort. This can have unexpected security implications for applications and protocols used on domain-based corporate networks.

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