Alert
The availability now of new .au domain name types means legal firms and individuals should act immediately to protect themselves against cyber criminals. Fraudsters could use the opportunity of registering similar domain names to impersonate law firms and lawyers. The new shortened domain names mean for example that mybusiness.com.au can now also be registered as and become mybusiness.au.
What's on this page?
What you need to know
To minimise the exposure to this risk, the Australian Cyber Security Centre recommends that all Australian businesses, organisations and individuals take up the current priority allocation process that has been provided to existing domain name holders, to register their .au equivalents before 20 September 2022.
The risk for legal practices is that if cybercriminals are able to register the .au shortened equivalent of an existing law practices domain, they could attempt to impersonate individuals and businesses online for fraudulent activity. Registering existing domain names in the new shorter .au format can close off this avenue for cybercriminals.
Existing domain name licence holders have until 20 September 2022 to register their .au equivalent(s) after which time unallocated domain names will be available to the general public ― and potentially cybercriminals.
What you should do now
Risk Management
- Law practices should make enquiries with their IT provider and their accredited domain name registrar to register the .au equivalent domains before 20 September 2022.
- Read the Australian Cyber Security Centre alert for more information about how to register the shortened version of existing domain names.
- For more information about the new shortened domain names go to .au Domain Administration Limited (auDA).
- For practical information to help keep layers and law practices cybersafe see LPLC’s Cyber Security Guide for Lawyers.
