The CSIRT.CZ National Security Team Launches the “Guardians of the Internet” Service

The CSIRT.CZ National Security Team, coordinated by the CZ.NIC Association, is launching the “Guardians of the Internet” service, which aims to standardize the process for reporting domain names misused for criminal activity targeting Czech users (regardless of whether it is a .CZ domain or another type of domain). Users will also be able to access the service via a browser extension.

The new tool supports reporting both with authorization and anonymously; however, anonymous reporting will not allow for the same level of automation as non-anonymous reports. After reviewing each report, the security team will initiate a standard procedure aimed at removing dangerous websites.

“By launching the Guardians of the Internet service, we are responding to user demand for a single point of contact for reporting dangerous websites, which also allows for easy reporting via a browser extension,” says Ondřej Filip, CEO of CZ.NIC, adding: “On our end, we primarily expect the system to enable a faster response to such websites. Research shows that the profitability of fraudulent sites decreases over time, so we want to receive information about them as soon as possible in order to maximize the automation of further processing of relevant data.”

In recent years, there has been an extreme increase in the number of social engineering attacks that use fraudulent websites, whether it be classic phishing, scam advertisements on ad servers that claim to be from delivery services, or fake investment platforms. That is why the CZ.NIC Association and the CSIRT.CZ security team are now appealing to the general public and asking for cooperation in reporting suspicious websites. Active and coordinated involvement from both the expert and lay communities is a key step toward creating an effective defense against cybercrime.

CSIRT.CZ provides comprehensive services in the area of coordinating security incident response and is also dedicated to awareness-raising, training, and preventive activities. It maintains connections with the global community of CSIRT/CERT teams and, within the Czech Republic, collaborates with content providers, internet service providers, banks, law enforcement agencies, the academia, government agencies, and other institutions.