Security researcher tricks US into giving him a .gov website

.GOV WEBSITES MAY NOT BE QUITE AS SECURE AS YOU THINK.

A security researcher was able to trick the US government into giving him a .gov URL after he posed as the mayor of the small 6,500 person district of Exeter, Rhode Island. The only other details the issuing body required as proof of the position was a phone number and an email address, both of which the researcher generated without having to include any directly identifying information. After being issued the official domain the researcher reached out to well known security website Krebs on Security using the exeterri.gov domain he had just acquired to highlight the infiltration. The issuing body only rang the Exeter government office ten days after the domain was issued.