Rikke’s identity abused for creating fake webshops
While searching for the scammers, who are behind a number of fake webshops, Kontant, an investigative feature on Danish national broadcaster, DR, came across the name Rikke Laursen.
Laursen told the reporters that it wasn’t her website, but that she had been the victim of such abuse of her personal details before.
For Rikke it all began when she received a letter from Danish domain name registrar DK Hostmaster informing her, that she was now registered as owner of a Danish domain name.
Following this she was contacted by a woman who wanted to buy some shoes from the website.
Rikke then got in touch with DK Hostmaster, who deleted her name from their files. This didn’t prevent the scammers from continuing to abuse her personal details, as just a few months later she received a new letter with the information that a new domain had been registered in her name.
The problem is due to the methods used by DK Hostmaster for validation. A physical letter is sent to the apparent registrant, stating that the domain name has been registered, but no further confirmation is required.
This isn’t good enough, according to IT expert Henrik Bjørner who insists that the system needs to be improved. More validation is necessary in order to make sure, that the registrars of domain names are who they say they are.
Chairman of DK Hostmaster, Henrik Udsen, is sorry that Rikke has had this experience, but he does not think it a big problem. Even so, DK Hostmaster is looking into better ways to validate the registrants. This includes a requirement for Danish residents to use their personal eID signature NemID when registering a .dk domain.