Cyberattack

How to Choose a Cyber Threat Intelligence Provider

Throughout the course of my career I've been blessed to work with some of the most talented folks in the security and cyber threat intelligence (CTI) mission space to create a variety of different capabilities in the public, private and commercial sectors. Before I came to lead the Verisign iDefense team about five years ago, I had to evaluate external cyber-intelligence vendors to complement and expand the enterprise capabilities of my former organization. more

Russian Hackers Have Penetrated U.S. Electric Utilities

U.S. federal government officials have revealed Russian hackers have been able to gain access to the networks of electric utilities in the country, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. more

Cyberattack Causes Operational Disruption to Critical Infrastructure Using New Malware TRITON

A new malware designed to manipulate industrial safety systems was deployed against a critical infrastructure organization that provides emergency shutdown capability for industrial processes, according to a report released today. more

Global Paradigms We Relied Upon Were Destroyed Overnight - How Prepared Are You for New Realities?

Unprecedented new Political and Cyber Security Threats are happening at a scale that has never been witnessed before. These threats are large and malicious enough to take down nuclear programs, render oil refineries inoperable, and take billion-dollar websites offline (not to mention smaller ones). Recent events confirm that NO ONE IS IMMUNE. Despite the obvious warning signs, Internet business stakeholders the world over continue to act as if nothing has changed, and seem unaware that global paradigms have undergone a seismic shift almost overnight. more

Black Frog: Next Generation Botnet, No Generation Spam Fighting

Black Frog -- a new effort to continue the SO-CALLED Blue Security fight against spammers. A botnet, a crime, a stupid idea that I wish would have worked -- News items on Black Frog. Blue Frog by Blue Security was a good effort. Why? Because they wanted to "get spammers back". They withstood tremendous DDoS attacks and abuse reports, getting kicked from ISP after ISP. ...The road to hell is filled with good intentions. Theirs was golden, but they got to hell, quite literally, non-the-less. ...When Blue Security went down, some of us made a bet as to when two bored guys sitting and planning their millions in some café would show up, with Blue Security's business plan minus the DDoS factor. Well -- they just did. more

Phishing: Competing on Security

The UK today is one of the main attack targets by phishing organized crime groups, globally. Phishing damages will amount to about two billions USD in 2006 worldwide -- not counting risk management measures such as preventative measures, counter-measures, incident response and PR damages. In most cases, phishing is caused by the fault of the users, either by entering the wrong web page, not keeping their computers secure or falling for cheap scams. Often this is due to lack of awareness or ability in the realm of Internet use rather than incompetence by the users... more

Oracle Launches Internet Intelligence Map Providing Insight Into the Impact of Internet Disruptions

Oracle today announced the launch of the Internet Intelligence Map website; a source available for free that provides country-level connectivity statistics based on traceroutes, BGP, and DNS query volumes on a single dashboard. more

A Noteworthy Report on Fast Flux Hosting

This very interesting document was released by ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) for public comment yesterday. And it asks some fundamental questions while at the same time pointing to sources such as the Honeynet Alliance's reports on fast flux. more

Newly Discovered Malware Called VPNFilter is Targeting at Least 500K Networking Devices Worldwide

Cisco's security arm, Talos, today revealed a several-month-old research on a sophisticated modular malware system dubbed "VPNFilter. more

Proceedings of Name Collisions Workshop Available

Keynote speaker, and noted security industry commentator, Bruce Schneier (Co3 Systems ) set the tone for the two days with a discussion on how humans name things and the shortcomings of computers in doing the same. Names require context, he observed, and "computers are really bad at this" because "everything defaults to global." Referring to the potential that new gTLDs could conflict with internal names in installed systems, he commented, "It would be great if we could go back 20 years and say 'Don't do that'," but concluded that policymakers have to work with DNS the way it is today. more

Cyber-Terrorism Rising, Existing Cyber-Security Strategies Failing, What Are Decision Makers to Do?

While conventional cyber attacks are evolving at breakneck speed, the world is witnessing the rise of a new generation of political, ideological, religious, terror and destruction motivated "Poli-Cyber™" threats. These are attacks perpetrated or inspired by extremists' groups such as ISIS/Daesh, rogue states, national intelligence services and their proxies. They are breaching organizations and governments daily, and no one is immune. more

Canadian Internet Registration Authority Launches Cloud-Based DNS Firewall Service

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has announced the launch of a security service called D-Zone DNS Firewall -- a cloud-based cybersecurity solution -- to protect Canadian organizations from rasomware and malware. more

Branded Domains Are the Focal Point of Many Phishing Attacks

As a long-established online attack strategy, phishing remains a popular tool for fraudsters because of its effectiveness. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reported more than 300,000 distinct phishing attacks in December 2021 -- more than three times the number reported in early 2020, and the highest monthly total ever identified. more

So Long, Farewell: The Worst DDoS Attacks of 2016

The year 2016 will go down in infamy for a number of reasons. It was the year an armed militia occupied an Oregon wildlife refuge, Britain voted to Brexit, an overarching event that will simply be referred to as The Election occurred, and Justin Bieber made reluctant beliebers out of all of us. 2016 was also the worst year on record for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by a margin that can only be considered massive. more

Major Regulatory Changes Needed as Safety and Security Merge, Warns European Commission Report

As we increasingly move towards an IoT world, vendors of safety-critical devices will be patching their systems just as regularly as phone and computer vendors do now. Researchers warn that many regulators who previously thought only in terms of safety will have to start thinking of security as well. more