Post by @briankrebs__dup_6@infosec.exchange

2026-02-16 20:46 UTC

Security nerds have launched a Gofundme to buy back securityfocus.com, a domain that hosted the Bugtraq site and more than 120,000 links from the National Vulnerability Database that are now dead. Whoops. &quot;Symantec killed Bugtraq in 2020 and let the domain lapse. Now it&#39;s squatted for $175k,&quot; writes Jonathan Brossard. &quot;The NVD has 120,000+ broken links pointing there. The security community&#39;s memory is being held hostage.&quot; https://www.gofundme.com/f/restore-securityfocus-bugtraq?attribution_id=sl:81e68f4d-14c5-46b5-9543-0d66980203e8&amp;lang=en_AU&amp;ts=1771062583&amp;utm_campaign=man_ss_icons&amp;utm_medium=customer&amp;utm_source=copy_link Not sure if this matters, but DomainTools says the domain was transferred to Accenture.com, Accenture Global Services Limited in Ireland.

Replies (8)

@fancysandwiches@neuromatch.social 2026-02-16 20:50

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange publicly declaring a campaign to buy the domain back seems like a great way to make the price go up.

Open ##5286889
@womble@infosec.exchange 2026-02-16 21:00

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange why reward the lowlifes who are squatting the name? It's not entirely dissimilar to paying ransomware. Instead, put up the site on a new domain and do a search and replace in the NVD. It doesn't fix all the other dead links out there, but it's better than paying a rentier.

Open ##5286890
@ohir@social.vivaldi.net 2026-02-16 21:27

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange It would be way better for "security nerds" to register securityfocus.is or whatever.eu and supply the non nerd community with `s/securityfocus.com/whatever.eu/` solution. Were times better the ACPA and pro bono lawyers would be enough.

Open ##5286891
@michael@westergaard.social 2026-02-17 00:09

“Lets reward domain squatting instead of running a search/replace”

Open ##5286893
@john_philip_bell@defcon.social 2026-02-17 02:43

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange What am I missing here? Getting the domain back does not restore the information the links point to. Is someone saying there is a backup somewhere to restore? Restore it (old target website) anywhere (to a new host), I've downloaded the (NVD) database for local processing many times in my life... In your own copy, search and replace the domain reference to a new host... If this is important enough to the community at large, work on getting the NVD data itself to be updated. It is all text (once upon a time, XML, now I think JSON) 🤔 Edit: clarified 'it' as "(old target website)...(to a new host)"; and 'database' as "(NVD)"

Open ##5286894
@quinn@social.circl.lu 2026-02-17 10:17

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange Accenture. Of fucking course.

Open ##5286895
@johnlogic@sfba.social 2026-02-17 06:56

@poing@chaos.social @fancysandwiches@neuromatch.social @briankrebs@infosec.exchange Why not just fix the links and automatically point them to pages at archive org ?

Open ##5286897
@johnlogic@sfba.social 2026-02-17 12:00

@poing@chaos.social Sounds like an opportunity for someone to create a browser plug-in that just automatically offers to redirect links referencing the bad domain to the desired pages at the #InternetArchive .

Open ##5286898