Panix.com representative said domain ownership was moved
New York Internet service provider said Sunday it was working to
recover its domain name and e-mail services after suffering an
apparent hijacking.
A Panix.com representative said ownership of the domain had been moved
sometime Friday evening to a company in Australia, the domain name
server (DNS) records had been moved to the United Kingdom, and that
the company's mail had been redirected to a company in Canada.
"We are pulling our hair out here," said the representative, who spoke
on condition of anonymity.
The company warned that most customers will either have no access to
the Panix.com domain or will arrive at a false site. E-mail to the
domain is being directed to the false site and "should be considered
lost or compromised," the ISP said in its posting.
It is unclear how the domain could have been transferred without the
consent of the owner, and the representative expressed frustration
with the domain registrars.
"The registrars have not been as cooperative as common sense would
dictate," the representative said.
As a temporary workaround, the company suggested using the Panix.net
domain in place of the Panix.com domain. The company said that it was
working around the clock to recover the domain, but warned that may
not happen until Monday due to time zone differences.
In September, German police said a teenager had admitted to hijacking
the domain of the eBay Germany Web site. The domain hijack attack
happened at the end of August when visitors to the eBay.de site were
redirected to a different DNS, meaning that they could not access
auctions.
Panix, which was founded in 1989, provides Internet access and e-mail
services to New York City, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland County
and New Jersey.