Re: Also Wannacry?
"There is something a little off with this."
There sure is. I think you should look at changing the vendor you purchase domain names from, as it really shouldn't take "a few hours minimum" to sign in to a control panel, type or paste in a domain name, check the box that says "Yes please put this domain on the same domain name servers I always use" and then push a button to buy it. It's a five minute job at most, and that includes typing your password wrong four times and swearing a bit before you turn Caps Lock back off. And if you're concerned about the cost, which is less than the price of buying warm drinks for the entire team one time, you can typically 'return' the domain a few days later and end up paying nothing.
What you may be missing is that checking in with a mysteriously named domain is a fairly common technique for malware to use, and that it is not unusual to take control of expired, unregistered or cancelled domains to 'sinkhole' them, effectively shutting down an entire botnet by not only removing its central command and control facility but also redirecting the C&C traffic to a friendly site where you can keeps tabs on botnet infections and activity. The value isn't just in stopping a single infection on your local network, but also in seeing what every other infected host in the world is doing, so taking a few minutes to register a domain and point it to your existing sinkhole server is a reasonable thing to do.
This is exactly what MalwareTech described in his original write-up of WannaCrypt ( https://www.malwaretech.com/2017/05/how-to-accidentally-stop-a-global-cyber-attacks.html ), and he includes some data he was able to collect on global and regional infection rates through the sinkholed domain.
It may seem odd if you're not familiar with modern botnet hunting, but what MalwareTech did wasn't that unusual.