Cyberattack

Substantial DDoS Attack Disrupts Twitter, Netflix, Visa and other Major Sites

Major internet sites were disrupted for several hours this morning as internet infrastructure provider Dyn reported it was under a cyberattack, mainly affecting traffic on the U.S. East Coast. more

DNS… Wait a SEC

Complete DNSSEC implementation requires that domains are authenticated at the root by the Registry, and that DNS zones and records are authenticated as well. Now before I go any further, let me begin by stating that I fully support the development and deployment of DNSSEC and that the vulnerabilities presented by Cache Poisoning are very real, especially for those websites collecting login credentials or other types of sensitive information. more

Verisign Mitigates 300 Gbps DDoS Attack and Other Q2 2014 DDoS Trends

It has been another busy quarter for the team that works on our DDoS Protection Services here at Verisign. As detailed in the recent release of our Q2 2014 DDoS Trends Report, from April to June of this year, we not only saw a jump in frequency and size of attacks against our customers, we witnessed the largest DDoS attack we've ever observed and mitigated -- an attack over 300 Gbps against one of our Media and Entertainment customers. more

The Economics of Hacking an Election

There have been many news stories of late about potential attacks on the American electoral system. Which attacks are actually serious? As always, the answer depends on economics. There are two assertions I'll make up front. First, the attacker -- any attacker -- is resource-limited. They may have vast resources, and in particular, they may have more resources than the defenders -- but they're still limited. Why? more

Raspberries! Botnet Spam Just Got a Whole Lot More Dangerous

Many have heard of botnets, but for those that aren't certain what they are: Botnets are armies of hacked zombie computers that have malware on them, and send spam email at the command of operators anywhere in the world. They can also be told to deploy denial of service attacks, by all hitting the homepage of a given company, or attacking the DNS server or a service or country. more

RSA Breach Fallout?

Back in March, it was widely reported that RSA had suffered a serious security breach that (to some extent) weakened the security of its SecurID token. However, the NY Times reported then that the chairman said that the penetration wasn't absolute but "it could potentially reduce the effectiveness of the system in the face of a 'broader attack.'". more

A 60% Rise Reported on Malware Designed to Harvest Consumers’ Digital Data, aka Password Stealers

A significant rise has been detected in the use of malware aimed at harvesting consumer data, known as password stealers. more

Is The Term “Cyberwarfare” Overstating the Case?

At the Virus Bulletin conference last month, Andrew Lee from ESET gave a talk entitled "Cyberwar: Reality or Weapon of Mass Distraction?" In it, Lee talks about how the term "cyberwar" is thrown around a lot these days. However, he disagreed with the use of the term because it uses inflationary language and overstates the case; today's "cyberwar" is not the same as a conventional ware. more

German Authorities Seize Servers of Cybercriminal DDoS-for-Hire Service FlyHosting

FlyHosting had been open for business since November 2022 and was used for malicious activities such as hosting malware, botnet controllers, and carrying out DDoS attacks. more

DDoS Attacks Increased by 2000% in Past 3 Years, Asia Generating Over Half of Recent Attacks

In the past three years, Akamai has seen 2,000% increase in the number of DDoS attack incidents investigated on behalf of its customers. The latest State of the Internet report released today by Akamai also identifies top countries from which this observed attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. more

Survey Predicts Attacks on the Network Infrastructure Within 10 Years

Pew Internet Project has released a report called "The Future of the Internet" based on a recently conducted survey where 1,286 internet experts are said to have looked at the future impact of the internet and assessed predictions about how technology and society will unfold. The following is and excerpt from the report predicting at least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10 years on the networked information infrastructure or the United States power grid. more

Starting a New Conversation on Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity debate can be highly confusing at times. There is perhaps an analogy to be made between "Cybersecurity" and "The Economy". We all want to fix the economy but making progress is not an easy task. As soon as you are beyond that statement you notice that there is a lot of nuance. Issues like trust, influence, actors, and affectivity all come to play when you want to fix the Economy. The cybersecurity discourse has similar features. more

Boeing Says WannaCry Outbreak ‘Overstated and Inaccurate’

Various news outlets on Wednesday reported Boeing being hit by the WannaCry virus; the incident had initially triggered a widespread alarm within the company. more

Dynamic DNS Customers, Check Your Router Settings!

There have been quite a few news stories released over the last 24 hours regarding a wide-scale compromise of 300,00 Internet gateway devices. Here's the executive summary of what happened, how to check if you are vulnerable, and what you can do to fix it... If you use any of these devices, you should check it to ensure your device has not been compromised. more

Verisign Expands MANRS Relationship to Strengthen Global Routing Security

Verisign has been involved with an initiative known as Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security, or MANRS, since its inception. MANRS, which is coordinated by the Internet Society, focuses on strengthening the security and resiliency of IP networks throughout the world by identifying and providing best practices for mitigating common routing security threats. MANRS began as a collaboration among network operators and internet exchange providers, with Verisign formally becoming a participant in its Network Operator Program in 2017. more