If you receive any emails or texts with links ending in .US, BEWARE!

[thewayne]

Nominally, the .US top level domain is owned by the U.S. government. However, they contracted out the management of it. And it was then subcontracted out, etc. And now it's being controlled by a bunch of crooks who are doing domain shortening for a bunch of low-lifes who are using it for pfishing, credential theft, etc.

Domain shortening is when you see something like goo.gl/xyzabc. Google takes xyzabc and expands it to a much longer domain, the problem is that you can't see if it's a safe domain in the shortened version! Can you say security risk? I knew you could! The .US is pretty much not at all in use by the U.S. government, and anything critical sent to you by the government, such as an IRS notice, is going to come by the U.S. mail anyway.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/10/us-harbors-prolific-malicious-link-shortening-service/

Comments

[disneydream06]

UGH... Leave it up to the government to screw up something this bad. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

They should have never contracted out the management of the .US domain.  Probably thought they could save or generate some money.

[disneydream06]

Government really is run by idiots. :o :o :o

[thewayne]

I worked in government at various levels and for various agencies for most of my career, though never at the Fed level.  While there certainly are idiots there, and I worked for a few, most of the people there are honest and hard-working and try to do their best.  One of the problems for the Feds is an ever-increasing book of laws, rules and regulations that are really hard to understand, sometimes mutually exclusive, and they also rarely have increases in personnel to implement new directives.  It's the people in charge of government, i.e. congress, who don't have a clue.

[disneydream06]

It's the people in charge of government, i.e. congress, who don't have a clue.
Amen to that. :o

[thewayne]

The minions do what they can within the framework that they have to operate in.

[silveradept]

I have a feeling that the people responsible for allowing this to happen are the kind of politicians that believe the private sector can always automatically do things better than the government and at less cost, as well.

[thewayne]

Are there any examples of the private sector taking over a government function and doing it better long-term?

[silveradept]

Rhetoric, 15-love.

(More seriously, the answer is likely no.)

[thewayne]

ROFL!  Excellent answer!