Cybersecurity

U.N. Approves Resolution to Combat Cybercrime Despite Opposition From E.U., the U.S. and Others

The U.N. General Assembly has approved a resolution to start the process of drafting a new international treaty against cybercrime despite objections from the European Union, the United States and other countries. The Russian-drafted resolution received approval from a 193-member world body with a vote of 79-60 and 33 abstentions. more

DNS, Domain Names, and Certificates: The Missing Links in Most Cybersecurity Risk Postures

In 2019, we've seen a surge in domain name system (DNS) hijacking attempts and have relayed warnings from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, U.K.'s Cybersecurity Centre, ICANN, and other notable security experts. Although the topic has gained popularity amongst CIOs and CISOs, most companies are still overlooking important security blind spots when it comes to securing their digital assets outside the enterprise firewalls -- domains, DNS, digital certificates. more

Encryption, Our Last Line of Defense

Encryption is fundamental to our daily life. Practically everything we do online makes use of encryption is some form. Access to our financial transactions, health records, government services, and exchanged private messages are all protected by strong encryption. Encryption is the process of changing the information in such a way as to make it unreadable by anyone except for those possessing special knowledge (usually referred to as a "key"), which allows them to change the information back to its original, readable form. more

Fake Apps Are a Real Problem

In the short ten years that they've been around, mobile apps have grown to become a staple of modern digital life. With more than five million apps currently available for download in the major app stores, and with over 2,000 new apps being uploaded every day, mobile apps are big business. Fifty-eight percent of shoppers consistently browse e-commerce apps and 49% of all website traffic now comes directly from mobile app users. All this browsing directly translates into spending. more

What to Make of the Inaugural NetThing 2019

The last Australian Internet Governance Forum (auIGF) was held in October 2016 before the annual event was cancelled as part of an auDA review. Three years on and the auIGF replacement – NetThing – was held in Sydney on 28 October 2019, though I was surprised to see that this Australian Internet event no longer had an associated .au domain name, instead choosing to go with NetThing.info. more

IGF2019 Observation: Compare Chancellor Merkel’s Digital Sovereignty with Chinese and U.S. Version

The 2019 UN IGF is right now being held in Berlin and entering the last day. There has been a wide range of exciting discussions. It is a huge step forward that this year's IGF has been able to bring a plethora of topics together under a framework of thinking after the efforts done by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres' High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation (The Age of Digital Interdependence) and by German scholars' engagement with all the stakeholders... more

Recognizing Lessons Learned From the First DNSSEC Key Rollover, a Year Later

A year ago, under the leadership of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the internet naming community completed the first-ever rollover of the cryptographic key that plays a critical role in securing internet traffic worldwide. The ultimate success of that endeavor was due in large part to outreach efforts by ICANN and Verisign which, when coupled with the tireless efforts of the global internet measurement community, ensured that this significant event did not disrupt internet name resolution functions for billions of end users. more

Advancing Cyberstability: Protect the Public Internet Core and Improve Cyber Hygiene

The Paris Peace Forum (PPF), established by the French president Emanual Macron, was picked by the Global Commission for Stability in Cyberspace (GCSC) to launch its final report "Advancing Cyberstability" for good reasons: The Internet isn't just a purely technical issue with some political implications anymore. On the eve of the 2020s, the management of cyberspace is a global problem, a matter of international security, a question of war or peace. more

Microsoft Announces Plans to Adopt DoH in Windows

Microsoft announced today its plans to adopt DNS over HTTPS (DoH) protocol in Windows and will also keep other options such as DNS over TLS (DoT) on the table for consideration. more

Cybersecurity Standards Practices as Cyber Threats

One of the most embarrassing and pernicious realities in the world of cybersecurity is the stark reality that some industry cybersecurity standards practices are themselves cyber threats. How so? Most industry and intergovernmental standards bodies serve as means for assembling the constantly evolving collective knowledge of participant experts and package the resulting specifications and best practices as freely available online documents to a vast, diverse universe of users. more

Cybersecurity Workforce Needs to Grow 145% to Close Skills Gap Worldwide, Says New Study

The cybersecurity workforce needs to grow by 145% to close the skills gap and better defend organizations worldwide according to a report released by (ISC)², a nonprofit membership association of certified cybersecurity professionals. more

More Privacy for Domain Registrants – Heightened Risk for Internet Users

A recent exchange on CircleID highlighted a critical need for data to inform the debate on the impact of ICANN's post-GDPR WHOIS policy that resulted in the redaction of domain name registrant contact data. A bit of background: in my original post, I made the point that domain name abuse had increased post-GDPR. A reader who works with a registrar (according to his bio) commented: "Can you back up that statement with data? Our abuse desk has actually seen a reduction in abuse complaints." more

Part 2: Let’s Have an Honest Conversation About Huawei

In the first section of this piece, I argued that the anti-Huawei litany only makes sense when one realizes that it is the Chinese state, not a global telecommunication equipment manufacturer based in China, is the target of this attack. China, in this view, is an integrated monolith, and any Chinese firm can be ordered to do the government's will without any legal, political, or economic checks and balances. more

Blasphemy: The U.S. Problem Is Huawei’s Security Is Too Good

Everyone knows the $100B/year U.S. security apparatus taps almost the entire Internet. Friendly governments help from Australia to Canada to France. Companies like AT&T, Ericsson, Verizon, and Nokia obviously cooperate. The NSA assumes that China is attempting to do the same and that Huawei, as a Chinese company, will provide assistance. The evidence suggests otherwise. Huawei is the primary opponent of U.S. security. more

Crypto Back Doors Are Still a Bad Idea

In the always interesting Lawfare blog, former FBI counsel Jim Baker in a piece called Rethinking Encryption reiterates his take on the encryption debates. There's a certain amount that makes me want to bang my head against the wall... But it's worth reading to remind us of what the other side is thinking, even with a lot of motivated reasoning that makes him conclude that Congress can pass some laws and the going dark problem will be solved. more