Remember three years ago when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the US Gulf coast?  On the day Katrina hit New Orleans hundreds of donation sites appeared online, many if not most were scam sites.  Well this time around it looks like the people who like to register domain names in anticipation of a storm's arrival have already started registering them for Gustav and Hanna.  I'm not suggeting that they are up to no good, but simply pointing out that the rush has started and we need to make sure our users are aware of the potential for scam sites appearing online in the next few days.

For example, these domains were registered in the past 24 hours according to Domain Tools:

aidforgustav.com
gustav-recovery.com
gustav08.com
gustavcharities.org
gustavcharity.org
gustavcontractor.com
gustavdonation.org
gustavdonations.com
gustavdonations.org
gustavfund.org
gustavjamaica.com
gustavsecurity.com
gustavsupport.com
gustavupdates.com
gustavvictims.com
gustavvolunteers.com
hurricanegustavrecovery.com
hurricanegustavresponse.com
isurvivedgustav.com
killergustav.com
officialhurricanegustav2008.com
reliefforgustav.com
trackgustav.com
trackgustav.net
victimsofgustav.com

I checked several of them and the sites i viewed are just parked with a "for sale" sign on them.  Nothing wrong with that, but it's only a matter of time before the "donate here" buttons start showing up.

Marcus H. Sachs
Director, SANS Internet Storm Center