News Briefs

EFF Raises Concerns Over EU’s Proposed Cyber Resilience Act

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has voiced concerns about the European Union's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), saying it could pose significant threats to open-source developers and cybersecurity. more

Poland to Test a Cybersecurity Program for Aviation Sector

During the two-day Cybersecurity in Civil Aviation conference, Poland announced an agreement to test a cybersecurity pilot program for the aviation sector as Europe's European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) civil aviation authority face increasing threats posed by hackers to air traffic. more

Close to Half of America Not Using the Internet at Broadband Speeds, Says Microsoft

The US government’s most recent broadband statistics from the FCC claims 25 million Americans to be lacking access to a broadband connection. more

Over 2 Million VPN Passwords Compromised by Malware Attacks

A recent report from Specops Software reveals alarming security vulnerabilities within VPN password systems, highlighting over two million VPN passwords stolen by malware in the past year. more

Dot Gay Alliance Announces Plans for .GAY TLD, Profits to Fund LGBT Civil Rights

The Dot Gay Alliance has announced plans to create the .GAY top-level domain (TLD) that also aims to become a source of funding for the LGBT civil rights groups in the US and abroad. The Dot Gay Alliance is led by Founder & Executive Director Joe Dolce, whose media strategy firm, DolceGoldin, provides communications services for the Alliance, according to the announcement released today. Dot Gay Alliance supporters include, New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Sunil Babu Pant, the first openly gay member of the Nepal Parliament. more

IANA Contract Extended by One Year, Announces Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce on Monday announced the official date for privatization of the DNS to be September 30, 2016 -- formerly set to expire on September 30, 2015. more

World’s Growing Refugee Population Requires Access to Broadband to Mitigate Problems, Says Report

Many of the problems refugees and their host countries face can be mitigated and made easier to solve if internet connectivity gaps are closed, says a team of senior communications experts working with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). more

US Government Admits IANA Transition May Not Move Forward

The US government plan to move control of the internet's naming and numbering functions to ICANN next month may not move forward, reports Kieren McCarthy more

ICANN, NTIA, Verisign and ANA Weighing In on ‘Name Collisions’ and the Readiness of New gTLD Program

Gregory S. Shatan of Reed Smith writes: "Last week, ICANN (the organization that oversees the domain name system of the Internet) was busy with nothing less than the security and stability of the Internet. At ICANN's recent meeting in Durban, those of us attending heard a drumbeat of studies, presentations and concerns regarding "name collisions": the conflicts that will arise when new gTLDs go live and conflict with existing top-level extensions in private networks..." more

Activist Hackers Target Government Websites Amid Escalating Israel-Hamas War

Hackers have intensified attacks on government websites and media outlets, both on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. more

US Justice Department and FBI Dismantle Long-Running Russian State-Sponsored Cyber-Espionage Operation Targeting NATO

The United States Department of Justice has announced that it has neutralized a global network of computers compromised by malware called "Snake," which the U.S. government attributes to a unit within Center 16 of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). more

Symantec Acquires VeriSign’s Security Business for $1.28 Billion

Symantec today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire VeriSign's identity and authentication business, which includes the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Services, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Services, the VeriSign Trust Services and the VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service. more

Content Filtering Ineffective, Harmful According to Public Knowledge Study

A report released today by Public Knowledge points out that their recent analysis indicates filtering Internet content, as advocated by media companies, will not be effective and in fact harmful to the Internet. An accompanying 60-page whitepaper contains the full report including a number of reasons why the user of copyright filters should not be allowed, encouraged or mandated on U.S. Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. more

DNS Under Strain: Technical and Policy Challenges in Supporting the Internet of Autonomous Things

A new IETF draft outlines critical limitations of DNS in supporting the Internet of Autonomous Things, highlighting challenges related to latency, mobility, security, and privacy, and proposing architectural improvements to meet evolving machine-driven demands. more

Hacker Has Released Close to a Billion User Records Over the Past Two Months, Reports ZDNet

A hacker by the name of Gnosticplayers has claimed responsibility for the hacking of 44 companies resulting in over a billion user data. Hacker also gotten dangerously close to releasing the records, ZDNet reports. more