Experts have warned the new release of non-Roman script fonts may well offer new possibilities for cyber criminals.

From 2011 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will begin to accept internet domain names in non-Roman scripts. Which means the internet will become more available to those whose native language does not use the Roman alphabet.

Westerners who are able to use such well known sites such as Yahoo, Google, and PayPal, can also be copied to look exactly the same in Cyrillic scripts such as Russian.

For example an email containing the word Paypal would look genuine enough to us in the western world, but to a Russian it would read as 'raural' This email could then be linked to a bogus website which could steal personal or financial information all from an unsuspecting eye.

Icann is now also allowing other languages to become apart of the internet domain, particularly Japanese and Chinese which uses pictures rather than words. Which then purposes the problem for many large internet domains as to how they will go about changing their well know domain name? For example, do they register a local site with a sound-a-like name? Or do they choose a character that is similar? Or a combination of characters that sound like the word they are trying to express?

The process will be complex, but also could open up a lot of new possibilities - hopefully of the right nature. More to come as further plans are released.

For more information see ICanns site
For more information on this release (and creditations) please refer to this