237 Domains Referencing Venezuela’s Earthquake, Most Registered Within 48 Hours

A magnitude-7.2 foreshock and magnitude-7.5 mainshock struck north-central Venezuela on 24 June 2026. Domain registration activity followed almost immediately: 44% of the high-confidence domains in our set were registered on 25 June alone, the day after the earthquake.

We compiled current domain registrations containing Venezuela markers such as venezuela and vzla, affected-place references such as Caracas and La Guaira, and earthquake or seismic terms such as terremoto and sismo. This gave us 237 domains registered between 24 and 30 June 2026 for our investigation, which yielded these findings:

• 105 domains were registered on 25 June, followed by 60 on 26 June and 29 on 27 June
• The set grew from 212 domains in the 29 June baseline to 237 after a 1 July differential capture
• 93% exposed no individual registrant mailbox, relying on privacy services or lacking a listed registrant contact
• Registrations were spread across 31 registrars and 20 TLDs, with Namecheap holding the largest registrar share at 22%
• The most common TLD was .com, with 118 domains, followed by .org with 49
• Aid and donation language appeared in 122 domains, while earthquake/seismic terms appeared in 61 and SOS/rescue language in 55

These figures should be read as a conservative floor. Expanding the term set to additional regional spellings, related relief vocabulary, typo variants, and historical WHOIS data would likely reveal more event-driven registrations.

Note(s):

This research was cited on:

• https://hackread.com/venezuela-earthquake-domains-donation-scam-warnings/
• https://www.telemundo47.com/video/responde/paginas-web-falsas/2639526/
• https://www.scworld.com/brief/new-websites-referencing-venezuela-earthquake-pose-online-risks
• https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/scammers-cash-in-venezuela-earthquake