Cyberattack

When Businesses Go Dark: A DDoS Survey

In February 2012, Neustar surveyed IT professionals across North America to better understand their DDoS experiences. Most were network services managers, senior systems engineers, systems administrators and directors of IT operations. In all, 1,000 people from 26 different industries shared responses about attacks, defenses, ongoing concerns, risks and financial losses. more

Oil and Gas Cyber Security Forum

A reader recently brought to my attention an upcoming conference in London in the UK -- The Oil and Gas Cyber Security Forum. Here's a little blurb: "Despite investments into state of the art technology, a majority of the oil and gas industry remain blissfully unaware of the vulnerabilities, threats and capability of a malicious cyber attack on control systems..." I bring this up because it is relevant to the trends in cyber security that we see this year - that of the Advanced Persistent Threat. more

Authenticated Resolution and Adaptive Resolution: Security and Navigational Enhancements to the DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) has become the fundamental building block for navigating from names to resources on the internet. DNS has been employed continuously ever since its introduction in 1983, by essentially every internet-connected application and device that wants to interact online. Emerging from an era where interconnection rather than information security was the primary motivation, DNS has gradually improved its security features. more

Internet Root Servers Hit with Unusual DNS Amplification Attack

On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, several of the Internet Domain Name System's root name servers received high rate of suspicious queries, reaching as high as 5 million queries per second, according to a report released by the Root Server System Advisory Council. The incident has been categorized as a unique type of DNS amplification attack. more

The Big Bad Internet

I often think there are only two types of stories about the Internet. One is a continuing story of prodigious technology that continues to shrink in physical size and at the same time continue to dazzle and amaze us... The other is a darker evolving story of the associated vulnerabilities of this technology where we've seen "hacking" turn into organised crime and from there into a scale of sophistication that is sometimes termed "cyber warfare". And in this same darker theme one could add the current set of stories about various forms of state sponsored surveillance and espionage on the net. more

Microsoft Warns Extortion Drives Majority of Attacks Amid AI Escalation, Identity Collapse, and Global Fragmentation

Microsoft's latest Digital Defense Report reveals how cybercriminals and nation-states are rapidly adopting AI to enhance attacks. With identity-based threats soaring, the company urges urgent modernization of security systems and global cooperation. more

Cyberspace Security in Africa – Where Do We Stand?

Very few African states today have developed a national cybersecurity strategy or have in place cybersecurity and data protection regulations and laws. Yet, the continent has made major headway in developing its digital ecosystem, and moreover, it is home to the largest free trade area in the world, which is predicted to create an entirely new development path harnessing the potential of its resources and people. more

Protecting Yourself from Spear Phishing

One of the big trends this year is spear phishing. These are phish attacks that are frequently (though not always) against high profile users. The purpose of these attacks is to steal sensitive data or get elevation of privilege inside the service by exploiting a software vulnerability within the user's computer that transmits usernames and passwords back to the phisher. more

Satellite Security Showdown: DEFCON’s Hack-A-Sat Competition Highlights the Rising Stakes of Space-Based Cybersecurity

As industries from agriculture to banking increasingly depend on space-based capabilities, safeguarding satellites from cyber threats has become paramount. In a groundbreaking move to address this, the U.S. military will stage Hack-A-Sat 4, a competition at the famed DEFCON hacker convention, inviting white-hat hacker teams to attempt to infiltrate and control computer systems on a satellite in orbit. more

Is Upping the Minimum Wage Good for the Information Security Industry?

The movement for upping the minimum wage in the US is gathering momentum. Protests and placard waving are on the increase, and the quest for $15 per hour is well underway. There are plenty of arguments as to why such a hike in minimum wage is necessary, and what the consequences could be to those businesses dependent upon the cheapest hourly labor. But, for the information security industry, upping the minimum wage will likely yield only good news. more

IANA: A Tale of Two Fails

The IANA -- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority -- is, functionally, the boiler room of the Internet. Every protocol in use to shovel data from Tallahassee to Timbuktu? Listed there. IP addresses? They are the root from which all addresses flow. Domain names? They are the Source. The entire operation is chock-full of magic numbers, numbers that form and fuel the digital world we use daily. But there are other, lesser-known numbers... It is of PENs that I write today... more

U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War

The Wall Street Journal has an interview with the outgoing head of the FBI's cyber crime investigation Shawn Henry. In it, he has a blunt assessment of the US's capabilities when it comes to combatting online crime, especially data theft and hacking... The more I read around the Internet, the more clear it's becoming at how cyber security is becoming a central focus. This has pretty big implications for the cloud. more

The Economics of Magic

Arthur C. Clarke said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Milton Friedman said there's no such thing as a free lunch. The validity of the former statement does not invalidate the later. From this we can see that even magic has a price. Hence, its application is subject to cost-benefit analysis. There are many developing technologies that may eventually qualify as magic. more

Internet Population Passes 1 Billion, and We’re Still Afraid

We're learning this week that we have officially passed the one billion number in terms of people using the Internet. Eric Schonfeld writes in his article on TechCrunch that the number is probably higher than that. One billion is a staggering number, even though it makes up only 15 to 22 percent of the world's population. Nevertheless, those one billion Internet users give us a lot to deal with on their own in terms of social and security issues on the web. more

Hyper-Volumetric DDoS Attack Sets New Benchmark at 22.2 Tbps

A record-shattering DDoS attack peaking at 22.2 Tbps signals a new era of cyber aggression, driven by weaponized IoT botnets and raising urgent questions about global internet resilience. more