Cybersecurity

Is This Only Sloppy Wording by ICANN?

So I wrote earlier that I though it was good stuff when ICANN released a paper on DNS Security. Yes, I think it was good this paper was released, and yes it points out correctly how important DNSSEC is. But, now when reading it in detail, I find two things that troubles me. And it has to do with management of .ARPA. A top level domain that is used for infrastructural purposes. Like IP-addresses and E.164 numbers... more

New Report on “State of DNSSEC Deployment 2016” Shows Continued Growth

Did you know that over 50% of .CZ domains are now signed with DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)? Or that over 2.5 million .NL domains and almost 1 million .BR domains are now DNSSEC-signed? Were you aware that around 80% of DNS clients are now requesting DNSSEC signatures in their DNS queries? And did you know that over 100,000 email domains are using DNSSEC and DANE to enable secure email between servers? more

The Standards Myth That Does Not Stop

The latest iteration of the most expansive, omnipotential cybersecurity legal regime ever drafted appeared a few days ago. The European Union (EU) Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is attempting to assert jurisdiction and control over all "products with digital elements" defined as "any software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components to be placed on the market." more

MIT Spam Conference: 2010 Call for Papers and Participation

I am proud (or disappointed) to announce the 8th annual MIT Spam Conference, March 25th and 26th at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A regular research competition that brings out the best minds in the fight against unsolicited email. At this point it would be helpful to provide a little background on the conference and remind everyone that the Call For Papers is still open. more

Whither Passwords

The primary means of authentication on the Internet is the password -- a half-century old, shared secret mechanism that is difficult to use (especially on mobile devices) and has acknowledged security flaws including attacks at scale. Even so, passwords remain the most prevalent form of authentication with efforts to enhance security typically relying on "bolt on" solutions that increase user friction. more

Google Dumps Illicit Pharmacy Advertisements

Garth Bruen writes: Within the next few weeks Google plans to update its pharmacy policy which will restrict pharmacy advertisements. Once in effect, the updated policy will only allow VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies to advertise. Additionally these pharmacies can only target ads within their country. more

DNS Tunneling: Is It a Security Threat?

DNS tunneling -- the ability to encode the data of other programs or protocols in DNS queries and responses -- has been a concern since the late 1990s. If you don't follow DNS closely, however, DNS tunneling likely isn't an issue you would be familiar with. Originally, DNS tunneling was designed simply to bypass the captive portals of Wi-Fi providers, but as with many things on the Web it can be used for nefarious purposes. For many organizations, tunneling isn't even a known suspect and therefore a significant security risk. more

NTP: The Most Neglected Core Internet Protocol

The Internet of today is awash with networking protocols, but at its core lie a handful that fundamentally keep the Internet functioning. From my perspective, there is no modern Internet without DNS, HTTP, SSL, BGP, SMTP, and NTP. Of these most important Internet protocols, NTP (Network Time Protocol) is the likely least understood and has the least attention and support. Until very recently, it was supported (part-time) by just one person. more

Beware of Abandoned Domain Names in this Turbulent Time and as the Global Economy Changes

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused worldwide disruption -- for whole nations and their economies. Unfortunately, there will be some side effects for businesses. A number of brands will disappear from the streets and shelves, as businesses that fail to weather the storm will have to fold. Companies that do survive will likely focus more on their core markets, pulling brands out of higher risk, less profitable markets... more

Open Source Software Is the Worst Kind Except for All of the Others

Heartbleed, for anyone who doesn't read the papers, is a serious bug in the popular OpenSSL security library. Its effects are particularly bad, because OpenSSL is so popular, used to implement the secure bit of https: secure web sites on many of the most popular web servers such as apache, nginx, and lighttpd. A few people have suggested that the problem is that OpenSSL is open source, and code this important should be left to trained professionals. They're wrong. more

Don’t Make Us Treat Our Customers Like Criminals!

Crime, fraud, scams etc., they're all very bad things. They're also not going to go away anytime soon. As a domain name registrar and hosting provider we're constantly "at risk", as we sell a lot of services that are both cost-effective and also give criminals the tools they need to attack 3rd parties. Again, this isn't exactly news. We've always taken a very pro-active approach to dealing with criminal activity and network abuse... But recently I've been losing sleep. more

A Few More Thoughts on Email Authentication… errr… Trust

Mike Hammer's thoughtful article, A Few Thoughts on the Future of Email Authentication, should trigger thoughtfulness in the rest of us. Email abuse has been around a long time. Anti-abuse efforts have too. Yet global abuse traffic has grown into the 90+% range, with no hint of trending downward. The best we hear about current effectiveness is for last-hop filtering, if you have the money, staff and skills to apply to the problem... more

Spymaster Sees Israel As World Cyberwar Leader

HaAretz, an Israeli newspaper, quotes Major-General Yaldin as saying: "Fighting in the cyber dimension is as significant as the introduction of fighting in the aerial dimension in the early 20th century." (my translation) If this statement is to be believed, Israel is active in cyberspace. And yet, why would Israel admit that, regardless of if it really happens? One option is... more

Putting Cyber Threats Into Perspective

As society uses more digital technologies we are increasingly also faced with its problems. Most of us will have some horror stories to tell about using computers, smartphones, and the internet. But this hasn't stopped us from using the technology more and more. I believe that most people would say that their lives would be worse without technology -- in developed countries but equally in the developing world. more

Reducing Cybersquatting, Phishing

Solutions to cybersquatting and phishing must target brand customers instead of the trademark infringers, who are in effect liars. This post outlines why online-based traditional solutions fail, and it offers solutions to two types of lying (cybersquatting and phishing). more