News Briefs

US Antitrust Enforcement in Telecommunication Being Ramped Up

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that antitrust enforcement in telecommunication is being ramped up by the Obama Administration, after relatively lax times. In a piece entitled Telecoms Face Antitrust Threat it indicates that investigators are weighing up the roles of the large carriers and whether they are abusing the market power amassed under the Bush Administration. more

ICANN Opens New gTLD Applications for First Time Since 2012, With $227K Entry Fee and 27 Scripts

ICANN reopens applications for new top-level domains after 14 years, charging $227,000 per bid while tightening rules, as it seeks to expand multilingual access and reshape competition in the internet's naming system. more

US, China Reach Agreement on Guidelines to Combat Cybercrime

United States Justice Department has announced that US and China have reached an agreement governing how the two countries will request assistance to combat cybercrime. more

Hackers Earned Over $100K in 20 Days Through Hack the Air Force 2.0

HackerOne has announced the results of the second Hack the Air Force bug bounty challenge which invited trusted hackers from all over the world to participate in its second bug bounty challenge in less than a year. more

Approach IoT With Security in Mind, Says AT&T Chairman

By 2020, some 50 billion devices are expected to connect to the Internet and the economic value created by IoT could be worth as much as $11.1 trillion -- roughly 11% of the global economy by 2025, according to a new report released by AT&T. more

Gas Pipeline Firms Under Targeted Phishing Attacks

The United States Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) has issued a warning about an active "spear phishing" campaign targeting companies in the natural gas pipeline sector. In an advisory issued last week, ICS-CERT said it has received information about targeted attacks and intrusions into multiple organizations over the past several months. more

UK Announces Additional £1.9 Billion in Cyber Security Funding

Chancellor George Osborne announces government plan to almost double its investment in cyber security initiatives over the next five years, spending an additional £1.9 billion. more

ICANN Extends Chehadé‘s Contract by Two More Years

ICANN today announced that its Board has extended the contract of Fadi Chehadé, President and Chief Executive Officer, by two more years. "I'm glad to be able to expend my energy and passion towards ICANN's noble mission and great public responsibility," said Chehadé. more

New Non-Profit Launched to Support the Growth and Development of Domain Name Industry

An international nonprofit organization has been created to promote the interests of the domain name industry by advocating the use, adoption, and expansion of domain names as the primary tool for users to navigate the Internet. more

Women in Security Organize New Conference in Reaction to RSA’s Lack of Female Speaker Inclusion

RSA, one of the largest cybersecurity conferences, has been criticized for booking only one female keynote speaker this year who is Monica Lewinsky. more

Telecom Execs Meet at the NGT Asia Summit to Discuss the Move to 4G

"Such a meeting has been a long time coming, large operators have been losing revenue as the communication market has diversified, network optimization should lend to them finding new revenue streams as the level of service can expand" -- Nick York, NGT Summit Director Asia Pacific. more

APWG Releases 2008 First Quarter Phishing Activity Trends Report

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) has released its 2008 first quarter Phishing Activity Trends Report revealing that the Crimeware-Spreading URLs rose rapidly doubling previous high. More specifically, the report say that numbers of crimeware-spreading URLs infecting PCs with password-stealing code rose 93 percent in Q1, 2008 to 6,500 sites, nearly double the previous high of November, 2007 -- and an increase of 337 percent from the number detected end of Q1, 2007. On the positive side, the number of phishing reports and new phishing websites decreased at the end of Q1 2008 period. more

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality “A Mistake”, Planning on Much Lighter Style Regulation

During a speech at Mobile World Congress today, Ajit Pai said that net neutrality was "a mistake" and that the commission is now "on track" to return to a much lighter style of regulation. more

MAAWG Overview of DNS Security - Port 53 Protection

J.D. Falk writes: Last week, MAAWG quietly published a new document titled "Overview of DNS Security - Port 53 Protection." [PDF] The paper discusses cache poisoning and other attacks on the local DNS, including likely effects of such a compromise and what access providers may be able to do to prevent it. more

ICANN Must Stop Resisting Accountability Changes, Warn US Senators

Two leading US senators, John Thune, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, and ranking member Brian Schatz have signed a letter warning that without "significant accountability reforms that empower the community," Congress will not support the transition of the IANA contract from the US government to ICANN. more