EZTV Shuts Down After Scammers Steal Domain Names Posted by: Sean F , 17:19 AEST, Wed May 20, 2015 EZTV, Piracy Tags: Copyright

Tweet Scammers steal all of EZTV's domain names in brazen hostile takeover, as the founder of the site calls it quits

Image/Photo Credit: Tactical Technology Collective @ Flickr, CC

Scammers have pulled off an elaborate scheme to steal all of the domain names owned by the original EZTV operators.



The group's main operator NovaKing has revealed the full extend of the multi-domain theft, which might have been in the planning for months.



The ordeal started for the TV show torrent site earlier this year when the site's .it domain name was temporarily suspended by Italian authorities due to inaccurate records. While this is not uncommon, and the international rules for domain registration does indeed require accurate records, what the Italian domain registry did next was unexpected. The registry put the .it domain name on the market, which was then secured by the people that have now completed a hostile takeover of the entire EZTV infrastructure.



The scammers registered a UK company with the name EZCloud LIMITED, and used this familiar sounding name and fake director information to also seize EZTV's .se domain name, which may have been the main target from the beginning. The reason why the .se domain name is the main target is that this is also the domain where EZTV founder NovaKing's email account is hosted.



Efforts by EZTV staffers to prevent the takeover of the .se domain name failed, with the registrar, EuroDNS, refused to offer any help at all without a court order.



With NovaKing's email account now accessible, the scammers used this to reset passwords to other registrar accounts and services owned by NovaKing, locking out the site's real operators, and successfully completing the hostile takeover.



Even NovaKing's personal, non EZTV related domain names, were all stolen in the process.



While the site's content and it's highly capable team, are still present and able to continue their work, even if it's on a new domain name, according to insiders, NovaKing has had enough and what was once a fun non-profit endeavour is no longer that attractive to the founder of one of the most popular TV torrent sites around. As a result, the EZTV group has now been formally disbanded.



Unfortunately for users, all the EZTV domain names are now occupied by the scammers, who may have started to inject ads and malware into their torrent downloads. Users are warned to not visit any EZTV related websites now or in the future.