Security companies are asking net governance body ICANN to adopt a new top level domain name to be used exclusively by registered banks and financial organisations. Domain Names like .safe or .sure would give consumers increased piece of mind that they are dealing with a legitimate financial institution while potentially making it easier to identify rogue sites. According to F-Secure, anti-virus and computer security software company, this change would allow security providers to create better software to protect the public.

    The idea is not new, it has been in existence for some time, but the massive rise in phishing attacks over recent months has renewed interest. According to figures from UK banking organisation APACS released earlier this month, online banking fraud losses in the UK alone came to £33.5m in 2006, up from £23.2m in 2005. This 44 per cent year-on-year increase was largely driven by an increase in phishing incidents, which went up from 1,713 in 2005 to 14,156 last year.

    Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, said: "While a .safe domain name won’t prevent phishing attacks, it will help banks and security providers to keep their customers safe. Using a secure domain name such as .safe will give customers the reassurance they need when banking online. It’s true this will mean banks have to pay a premium to be able to use the domain name, but it will reduce the number of successful phishing sites that have been tricking many customers out of their hard earned cash. Right now, customers have no good way of automatically being able to tell whether or not a bank website belongs to the bank." Recently numerous services and enhancements to browser software packages and searching sites designed to warn users that they might be visiting dodgy domains were launched, but they don't go far enough.

    A recent study based on results from SiteAdvisor, a free "safe searching" tool from McAfee that catalogues and warns users about unsafe sites, found that .gov was the only tested domain for which SiteAdvisor found no risky sites.

SiteAdvisor is an Internet service formerly provided by SiteAdvisor that warns users when downloading software or filling out forms on a site may make them victims of malware or spam. A .safe domain only available to financial institutions would be comparable to top level domains such .gov, which is only available to government institutions. Anecdotal evidence suggests this approach might lead to a more controlled environment for internet banking.