Bottle Domains given the boot by auDA

By Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 08:06

Technology

Melbourne-based domain registrar Bottle Domains has been stripped of its accreditation by auDA. The move results from a "serious" breach of the registrar agreement in relation to security breaches.

According to a statement issued by auDA, in February 2009 it was notified by the Australian Federal Police of a "security incident" that may have affected Bottle Domains' customers.

auDA officials say the organisation has now learned of an earlier security incident in April 2007 which may be related to the February incident.

"Information recently provided to auDA by Bottle Domains about the April 2007 incident revealed that it did not reset customer passwords or alert its customers to the possibility that their account information had been accessed by third parties," said the officials.

"Bottle Domains also failed to conduct an independent security audit to verify that the security vulnerability had been fixed, and that there was no other unauthorised access to its systems."

According to auDA CEO Chris Disspain, "In our view, Bottle Domains' failure to deal properly with the security incident in April 2007 demonstrated an alarming disregard of the potential risks to its own customers, and to the overall stability and integrity of the Australian DNS."

"Given the seriousness of the matter, it is appropriate that auDA terminate Bottle Domains' registrar accreditation," he added.

What did Bottle Domains have to say about the breach? Find out on page two.