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Now that we are all working from home (WFH), the need for encryption must also increase in priority and awareness. Zoom's popular video conferencing solution got in hot water because they promised "end-to-end" encryption but didn't deliver on it - prompting some organizations to ban it from use altogether. Encryption protects confidential information from being exposed in transmission, providing a secure way for the intended recipient to get the information without snooping by others. more
While it might still be too early to make predictions, there are dozens of articles on the web predicting how the COVID-19 pandemic might change our long-term behavior. Here are some of the more interesting predictions I've seen that involve broadband and telecom... Millions of people were sent home for work or school to homes that didn't have good broadband. These folks have been telling the world for years that they don't have good broadband... more
The Coronavirus pandemic has profound impact on every aspect of every person's life. We all have turned to the Internet to stay informed on this one subject. Unfortunately, the Internet community is not equipped to organize the Internet around one subject. Governments and businesses are reorganizing their websites daily to make new paths to new coronavirus information on many topics suitable for their many audiences. more
In part three of this series of posts looking at emerging internet content relating to coronavirus, we turn our attention to mobile apps - another digital content channel that can be used by criminals to take advantage of people's fears about the health emergency for their own gain.One of the most common attack vectors we have found in our analysis is the use of apps purporting to track global progression of COVID-19, or provide other information, but which instead incorporate malicious content. more
At first glance, the COVID-19 pandemic would seem to be great news for tech companies. Depending on which set of statistics you look at, internet usage has spiked by up to seventy percent over the past month as people around the globe are forced to work, socialize, and entertain themselves at home. However, it's not all good news for tech companies. more
In early April, I had a routine consultation with my electrophysiologist at Nuvance Health via telehealth. Nuvance uses telehealth technology from American Well. In preparation for the consult, I took my blood pressure with a Qardio cuff and my iPhone, weighed myself on the Fitbit scale, and took a 30-second ECG with the Apple Watch. A nurse called 15 minutes before my appointment and took the information for input to the Electronic Health Record. more
During the last week, Google says it has been seeing 18 million malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 daily. This, the company reported today, "is in addition to more than 240 million COVID-related daily spam messages." more
Nobody loves a good crisis more than a hacker and, by anyone's definition, coronavirus is a big, fat stinking crisis that almost everyone on earth is sitting in the middle of. For most of us, a crisis brings out the best. First responders and the healthcare systems are replete with stories of superhuman sacrifice and commitment to others. Unfortunately, it is this commitment to the work at hand that puts cybersecurity on the back burner and increases the chance of a breach, break-in, or general mischief. more
In the midst of the coronavirus crisis and the partial or total quarantines happening around the world, more people are turning to eCommerce for their purchases. This, combined with the increased demand for healthcare and healthcare-related products, is causing surges of activity on online marketplaces. Perhaps least surprising is the growth in the number of listings for cleaning and hygiene products (e.g., hand sanitizer), as well as facemasks... more
In recent weeks we've seen a range of press articles, security blogposts and public statements addressing real or perceived issues with network capacity and the domain name system (DNS) in particular. These range from concerns about the resilience of the DNS with questions on the impact of the number of registrations to news indicating that a tidal wave of fraud and abuse is hitting the world. more
All of the major ISPs that were enforcing data caps have lifted those caps in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This includes AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Mediacom, and CenturyLink. All of these companies justified data caps as a network management tool that was in place to discourage overuse of the network. That argument no longer holds water if these ISPs eliminate them during a crisis that is overtaxing networks more than we are likely to ever see again. more
It is a well understood scientific fact that Internet voting in public elections is not securable: "the Internet should not be used for the return of marked ballots. ... [N]o known technology guarantees the secrecy, security, and verifiability of a marked ballot transmitted over the Internet." But can legislatures (city councils, county boards, or the U.S. Congress) safely vote by Internet? Perhaps they can. To understand why, let's examine two important differences between legislature votes and public elections. more
As news of the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to emerge, CSC has undertaken the first in a series of studies looking at how the development of the crisis has affected online content. This first article looks at the numbers of registered domains with names containing coronavirus-related strings - "coronavirus" or "covid(-)19" (optional hyphen) - and analyzes the types of content present on the associated websites. more
There are new threats that you may have already been exposed to. Here are some of the new threats and advice on how to protect yourself. During this pandemic, Zoom has emerged as a very popular teleconferencing choice for companies and educational institutions, but a new weakness for Zoom was also discovered. Some online conferences and classes that had not password protected their sessions fell victim to eavesdroppers using the screen sharing feature to "Zoom Bomb" those sessions with graphic images. more
In a previous blog post I mentioned that the FCC had taken away restrictions to allow broadband supplied by E-Rate funding to be used to provide free WiFi for the public. That's a good idea that will provide some relief for areas with little or no other broadband. But the announcement raises a more fundamental question - why was such a restriction in place to begin with? more
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