Cybersecurity

A Look Inside the European Response to Spam

Last week the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), which assists the European Commission and its member states with network and information security issues, published its third Anti-Spam Measures Survey. The survey provides insight into how network operators in Europe are responding to the continued onslaught of email spam. more

You Don’t Need to Hack Twitter.com to Control All Its Traffic and Email

A big security news event last night and today is that the Twitter.com Web site was hacked and content on the site replaced. TechCrunch reported it and it has been picked up globally. But - was the Twitter.com website really hacked? We now know it was not so. There are four ways that users typing in Twitter.com would have seen the Iranian Cyber Army page. more

Bridging the Gaps: MAAWG, IETF, and BITS Establish Formal Relationships

As announced this morning, the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) has established formal relationships with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the BITS/Financial Services Roundtable... It's often said that there are too many different organizations working on the overlapping areas of abuse, trust, and related issues. I believe the collaborative approach MAAWG has chosen will bridge these gaps. more

Cyber Terrorism Is a Real Threat, and for the First Time Both Russia and the US Acknowledge It

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Internet security giant Kaspersky Lab said last week that "terrorists could build a botnet that could bring down the entire Internet structure". Mr. Kaspersky ended his speech with the statement that "a global cyber police force, and global cooperation between law enforcement agencies and governments is needed". This goes very much in accordance with some of the conclusions in the Cyberspace Policy Review more

The Real Face of Cyberwar?

Anyone who reads the papers sees stories -- or hype -- about cyberwarfare. Can it happen? Has it already happened, in Estonia or Georgia? There has even been a Rand Corporation study on cyberwarfare and cyberdeterrence. I wonder, though, if real cyberwarfare might be more subtle -- perhaps a "cyber cold war"? more

Online Drug Traffic and Registrar Policy

Last month I published an article called "What's Driving Spam and Domain Fraud? Illicit Drug Traffic" which explained how the many of the troublesome online crime issues are related to the online sale of narcotics and dodgy pharmaceuticals. Since this article was published we have witnessed one of the largest international law enforcement efforts against online drug traffic (Operation Pangea II)... more

2009 Domain Name Year in Review

To say that it's been quite a year in the world of domain names would be an understatement. From compromised country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD) registries, to the delay of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), some of the events of the past year have been surprising, while others could easily have been predicted. Regardless of whether you could have seen these coming, please find below my list of 2009's most important domain name events...at least, as I see them. more

Was the ClimateGate Hacker Justified? Join the Debate!

A few days ago a story broke where someone hacked into a global warming research institute and stole all emails from the past 10 years, proving a conspiracy. In the vast amount of emails stolen, some emails were also found with clear-cut lies, showing how some scientists conspired to deceive in scientific research about data that did not fit their agenda of proving global warming. I am opening the subject for debate... more

Announcement: Critical Internet Infrastructure WG is Now Open to Public Participation

ISOTF Critical Internet Infrastructure WG is now open to public participation. The group holds top experts on internet technology, critical infrastructure, and internet governance, from around the globe. Together, we discuss definitions, problems, challenges and solutions in securing and assuring the reliability of the global internet infrastructure, which is critical infrastructure for a growing number of nations, corporations and indeed, individuals -- world wide. more

Email’s Not Dead, Neither is Spam

Over the past few years, we have seen a plethora of over-hyped articles in the popular press and blogosphere crowing wrong-headedly about how 'email is dead'. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter, new and as-yet unproven technologies are the supposed death-knell for our old reliable friend, e-mail. I wrote about the rumours of email's death being exaggerated back in 2007 in response to such inanity. Since then, we've seen such a cornucopia of silliness of the 'Such & such is killing email' variety that Mark Brownlow compiled a bunch of articles, and their rebuttals at his excellent site... more