We have just issued a new report detailing abuse of the Domain Name System and Registrar contract compliance issues. The report specifically discusses several items including: Registrars with current legal issues; Illicit Use of Privacy-Proxy WHOIS Registration; A study on the contracted obligation for Bulk WHOIS Access; and more. more
I was browsing CircleID the other day and came across Bruce Schneier's article on cyberwar. Schneier's article, and the crux of his point, is that the term cyber war and the threat of cyber warfare has been greatly exaggerated. The real problem in cyberspace is not the threat of cyber warfare wherein a foreign government, or possibly non-state actor, conducts a cyber attack on another nation. more
The Uptime Institute (UI) is an IT industry research firm best known for certifying that data centers meet industry standards. UI issues an annual report that analyzes the cause of data center outages. The causes for data center outages are relevant to the broadband industry because the same kinds of issues shut down switching hubs and Network Operations Centers. more
In my recent write-up I start by discussing some recent threats network operators should be aware of, such as recursive DNS attacks. Then, a bit on the state of the Internet, cooperation across different fields and how these latest threats with DDoS also relate to worms and bots, as well as spam, phishing and the immense ROI organized crime sees. I try and bring some suggestions on what can be done better, and where we as a community, as well as specifically where us, the "secret hand-shake clubs" of Internet security fail and succeed. Over-secrecy, lack of cooperation, lack of public information, and not being secret enough about what really matters. more
The DNS Abuse Institute recently published our sixth monthly report for our project to measure DNS Abuse: DNSAI Compass ('Compass'). Compass is an initiative of the DNS Abuse Institute to measure the use of the DNS for phishing and malware. The intention is to establish a credible source of metrics for addressing DNS Abuse. We hope this will enable focused conversations, and identify opportunities for improvement. more
New research from the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) released on Wednesday reports that the use of freely available DNS firewalls could prevent 33% of cybersecurity data breaches from occurring. more
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
The White House has announced a new proposal to fix cybersecurity. Unfortunately, the positive effects will be minor at best; the real issue is not addressed. This is a serious missed opportunity by the Obama adminstration; it will expend a lot of political capital, to no real effect... The proposals focus on two things: improvements to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and provisions intended to encourage information sharing. At most, these will help at the margins; they'll do little to fix the underlying problems. more
The more I read, the more I see conflicting views on the state of the criminal cybercrime world. On the one hand, the Russian criminal cybercrime underworld is a scary, organized place... On the other hand, there is the position that that position is an exaggeration of what it is actually like and that it's a bunch of ragtag folks who have some advanced computer skills but they are not formally organized. ... I see this very similarly to how I see cyber warfare... more
As the pandemic continues, the network operator community continues to meet online. NANOG held its 81st meeting on February 8 and 9, and these are my notes from some of the presentations at that meeting... Ethernet, developed in 1973 at Xerox PARC, was a revolutionary step in network architectures in many ways. The common bus architecture imposed several constraints on the network that have echoed through the ensuing four decades in all kinds of ways. more
With the recent attacks against high-profile New Zealand domain names including Coca-Cola.co.nz and F-Secure.co.nz, fingers are naturally pointing to Domainz, the registrar of record for these domains, as the party responsible for this lapse in security. While domain name registrars certainly need to ensure the security and stability of their systems, domain name registries must also step up and take responsibility for mitigating risks posed by hackers... more
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been accused of purposely misleading several news organizations by claiming that the comment submission section of its website aimed to solicit opinions on net neutrality was taken offline by a cyberattack. more
The UK government is proposing new regulations to strengthen cyber resilience in the private sector. Their intention is to expand cybersecurity rules for critical infrastructure (CI) operators to include managed service providers (MSPs), more stringent breach notification requirements, and legislation to establish the UK Cyber Security Council as the standards development organization for the cybersecurity profession. This is a welcomed development, but more details about implementation and enforcement are needed. more
Anyone seeking to honor a groundbreaking contribution toward a better online world should submit a nomination for the 2014 M3AAWG J. D. Falk Award. Presented to people whose work on specific projects made the Internet a safer, more collaborative, more inclusive place, the J. D. Falk Award has recognized leaders and pioneers who saw elements of the online experience that needed improvement and took action to fix them. more
Last week Czech researchers released information on a new worm which exploits CPE devices (broadband routers) by means such as default passwords, constructing a large DDoS botnet. Today this story hit international news... The spread of insecure broadband modems (DSL and Cable) is extremely wide-spread, with numerous ISPs, large and small, whose entire (read significant portions of) broadband population is vulnerable. more