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Cybersecurity / Featured Blogs

Euro 2020: An Illustration of the Link Between Real-World Events and Online Infringements

In the run-up to the postponed Euro 2020 football championships, we've analyzed historical registration trends in domains containing the terms "euro2020" or "euro2021." A number of previous studies -- looking at events as diverse as the COVID pandemic, the annual holiday season shopping events, and the Reddit campaign relating to the manipulation of the stock price of U.S.-based retailer GameStop -- show a link between real-world events and spikes in online activity. more

Phishing Scams: How to Spot Them and Stop Them

Phishing scams are nothing new in the online security world and show no signs of subsiding. The scam starts when a fraudster sends a communication purporting to originate from a trusted provider and encourages the recipient, often with a conveyed sense of urgency, to click a link. That link leads to a fake site, usually intended to collect confidential login credentials or other personal information. In similar scams, the mail may encourage the recipient to open an attachment loaded with malicious content. more

As DENIC’s CEO Jörg Schweiger Prepares to Step Down, He Speaks About His Time at DENIC

In January Jörg Schweiger, DENIC's CTO from 2007 to 2014 and CEO since 2014, announced he was stepping down from his position in December. It's been quite a ride, and the domain name industry has evolved quite a lot. So we asked Jörg a few questions about his time with DENIC and the changes he's seen... he came up with some insightful views on why he thought new TLDs missed a great opportunity to do something with "innovative new business models," the importance of security to DENIC... more

Examining Real Examples of DNS Abuse: A Summary Overview of the 2nd DNS Abuse Forum

It was not without a little trepidation that I planned the 2nd DNS Abuse Institute Forum to focus on the long-standing and often contentious definitional issues surrounding DNS Abuse. While the risk of getting stuck in the usual entrenched positions was real, it seemed to me that we had an opportunity to provide some clarity and if not change minds, at least provide perspective. more

DNS Level Action to Address Abuses: New Tools for DNS Operators and Legislators

The ways in which the Internet is embedded in our daily lives are too varied and numerous to catalogue. The Internet delivers information, access to goods, services, education, banking, social interaction and, increasingly, work space. The global pandemic has only heightened our dependence on the online world, which is why efforts to ensure that the Internet remains a trusted and secure environment are more important than ever. more

The Risk of Descriptive Subdomains: Are We Revealing Too Much?

Subdomains help organizations sort different sections of their websites neatly. Looking at the subdomains of some websites, for example, we usually see subdomains like shop[.]domain[.]com and blog[.]domain[.]com, which help users navigate the sites efficiently. But we couldn't help but notice subdomains that might be revealing a lot about a company's Internet infrastructure and resources. more

Illusory Correlation and Security

Fear sells. Fear of missing out, fear of being an imposter, fear of crime, fear of injury, fear of sickness ... we can all think of times when people we know (or worse, people in the throes of madness of crowds) have made really bad decisions because they were afraid of something. Bruce Schneier has documented this a number of times. For instance: "it's smart politics to exaggerate terrorist threats" and ... more

Your Cybersecurity is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Vendor

Managing the risk of third parties has become a compliance focus for many large organizations. Companies even work with third-party service providers and external vendors just to manage this risk. The recent SolarWinds attack escalates the critical need for chief compliance officers to collaborate with their business counterparts to identify and mitigate potentially unknown threats that lie within third-party supply chains. Yet how can companies manage this risk when it's not if but when you're attacked? more

Vendor Selection Matters in the Domain Registrar Ecosystem

Domain name abuse is one of the most dangerous and under-regulated issues in digital business security today. Many of the largest companies in the world still lack basic domain security protocols, making them prime targets for bad actors. An attack on a domain can lead to the redirection of a company's website, domain spoofing, domain and domain name system (DNS) hijacking attacks, phishing attacks, network breaches, and business email compromise (BEC). more

Some Thoughts on the Recent DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research Centre Workshop, OARC-35

The DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research Centre (DNS-OARC) convened OARC-35 at the start of May. Here are some thoughts on a few presentations at that meeting that caught my attention... These days it seems that the term "the digital economy" is synonymous with "the surveillance economy." Many providers of services on the Internet spend a lot of time and effort assembling profiles of their customers. These days, it's not just data in terms of large-scale demographics but the assembling of large sets of individual profiles.  more