Microsoft bought the domain corp.com to prevent it from being controlled by criminals. The background is therefore standard settings in old versions of Windows, which lead to many Windows systems configured for company networks connecting to the domain and thereby also revealing access data.
Although Windows changed the default many years ago and issued security warnings, there are still many networks affected by the problem. This is also because the reconfiguration of existing networks is not entirely trivial and can lead to problems. The main reason for this is the Microsoft Active Directory service, which companies use to manage their internal networks. By default, employees simply had to enter corp into the browser to access the internal network. This was not a big problem in the desktop age, since the stationary computers were always part of the internal network and thus led to the right goal.
Connections With Access Data
Observed connections from hundreds of thousands of systems within a few minutes could have collected network access data from many. The collision of so called namespaces is what makes the domain so valuable, but at the same time threatening. Older Windows systems automatically connect to this domain. The reason for this is the standard configuration for company networks. At that time, the Microsoft directory service used corp as the standard domain to log on to an internal company network. If the connection does not work, the request is then sent to corp.com. The software giant has finally agreed to buy the domain. However, it is not allowed to tell anything about the business modalities. Microsoft acquired domain Corp.com as part of its commitment to customer security. Although Microsoft is now the domain owner, it should be noted that these DNS name collisions can still occur. Administrators should migrate Windows domains to company owned domain names whenever possible to avoid this type of DNS name collision causing problems in the future.
