Cybercrime

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

The Sad State of WHOIS, and Why Criminals Love It

I'm not even sure how to begin this post, but let me tell you -- my head explodes when I try to contact WHOIS "contacts" about criminal activity - FAIL. I think ICANN wants to do the right thing here, and has stated on multiple occasions that inaccurate WHOIS data is reason for registrar termination. That's a Good Thing... 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

Domain Management White Paper

Businesses may rely on domain names to conduct their day to day work, but that does not mean that they really understand what they are using or how important they are. Of course those of us in industry may feel tempted to either scoff at people's naivety or feel terribly frustrated with their ignorance, however neither action is particularly productive. Loic Damilaville, however, has tried to take a more practical and positive approach by publishing a white paper on domain name management. The document was published a few months ago in French and has since been made available in English. more

Fighting Phishing with Domain Name Disputes

I opened an email from GoDaddy over the weekend on my phone. Or so I initially thought. I had recently helped a client transfer a domain name to a GoDaddy account (to settle a domain name dispute), so the subject line of the email -- "Confirm this account" -- simply made me think that I needed to take another action to ensure everything was in working order. But quickly, my radar went off. more

Defendants Respond to Dell’s Anti-Tasting Suit

The defendants in Dell's domain tasting suit responded last Friday. It looks like a pretty feeble response to me. Their main argument is that they're just the registrar, and deny Dell's claim that the registrants are fakes made up by the registrar. They also argue that they're not infringing, they didn't use the names in question in commerce, they were just acting as helpful search engines, you know, like Google or Yahoo. (The comparison to Google and Yahoo is theirs.) 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

Trump’s Tweets Flouting the Cybercrime Treaty Curbs on Racist and Xenophobic Incitement

The existence of the 2001 Cybercrime Convention is generally well known. The treaty has now been ratified/acceded to by 60 countries worldwide, including the United States. Less well known is the existence of the Additional Protocol to the Convention "concerning the criminalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems." 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

Compliance Overhaul a Start

ICANN is clearly changing with the new CEO making immediate changes to the organizational structure and Compliance announcing a number more effective tools and procedures at Sunday's At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and Regional Leadership Meetings. It seems very ambitious and they will need to be because our year-long research, publicly distributed here for the first time, shows a complete breakdown in ICANN's Compliance functions on every level possible. 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

12 Common Mistakes Made By Bad Faith Cybersquatters

Some cybersquatters register domains in bad faith as part of a business plan to monetize domains by leveraging famous trademarks and high-traffic web sites. Some cybersquatters just don't understand the law. In this this tongue-in-cheek post, we provide a real world case study of the most common mistakes made by cybersquatters when registering trademark protected domains in bad faith. more

China to Create National Cyberattack Database

China has revealed plans to create a national data repository for information on cyberattacks and will require telecom firms, internet companies and domain name service providers to report threats to it. more

EURid Suspends More Domains

EURid, the entity charged with managing the .eu namespace, is reported to have taken action against an alleged cybersquatter based in China, Zheng Qingying... The last suspension "en masse" was directed against Ovidio when over 74 thousand domains were suspended. This time round the number is much lower -- a paltry ten thousand! In this instance there seems to have been a pattern of cybersquatting, with over a dozen ADR proceedings against the registrant in question. 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