Cybersecurity

A Report on the ICANN DNS Symposium

By any metric, the queries and responses that take place in the DNS are highly informative of the Internet and its use. But perhaps the level of interdependencies in this space is richer than we might think. When the IETF considered a proposal to explicitly withhold certain top-level domains from delegation in the DNS the ensuing discussion highlighted the distinction between the domain name system as a structured space of names and the domain name system as a resolution space... more

Use STIX to Block Robocalls

It is one of those oddities that occurs around Washington from time to time. During the same hour today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was meeting at its downtown headquarters trying to stop robocalls, while a large gathering of government and industry cybersecurity experts were meeting a few miles away at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab advancing the principal means for threat information sharing known as STIX. more

Malware and Botnet Operators Setting Up Their Own Data Centers

Dennis Fisher of Thread Post reports: "The malware writers and criminals who run botnets for years have been using shared hosting platforms and so-called bulletproof hosting providers as bases of operations for their online crimes. But, as law enforcement agencies and security experts have moved to take these providers offline, the criminals have taken the next step and begun setting up their own virtual data centers." more

More on ‘Researchers Hijack Storm Worm to Track Profits’

Always good for information on the spam economy, Brian Krebs of the Washington Post has just published a truly fascinating article: Researchers Hijack Storm Worm to Track Profits. Bottom line: a one-in-twelve-million conversion rate of spam to sales seems to be enough to keep the spam economy going. The article covers a project by researchers at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, who managed to infiltrate the Storm Worm bot network and take over a small portion of it. more

Why Passwords Have Never Been Weaker and Crackers Have Never Been Stronger

The past few weeks, I've been on this security kick particularly when it comes to encryption. I'm developing my own app in my spare time. So I'm trying a whole bunch of things, no doubt making plenty of mistakes in the process. Luckily, the data I am protecting is only quasi-valuable so I can afford to take a hit due to my own conscious incompetence. Anyhow, I ran across this article on Ars Technica yesterday entitled "Why Passwords have never been weaker - and crackers have never been stronger." It's a long article and it will take you a while to read it, but here is my summary. more

Malware Reach Is Expanding, Ransomware on the Rise

We live in an online age, one where malware infections have become commonplace. Some might say this is the price of doing business online. News headlines report damaging attacks on well-known brands with depressing regularity. Consumer confidence suffers as customers look to organizations to sort out the issue, secure their transactions and fix the problem. more

Four Steps to an Effective Brand Protection Program

Internet use has become ever more pervasive. With around five billion global users, it generates an economy of around 15% of global gross domestic product (GDP); that's around $15 trillion and is a figure that's growing 2.5 times faster than GDP itself. This makes the internet an attractive channel for infringers. Phishing and other fraud tactics, selling counterfeit goods online, and digital piracy are primary areas of concern. more

Beyond Domains: What Did We Really Learn in 2009?

The beginning of every year is a time for introspection, an appraisal of the year that was, and planning for the year to come. It is also a time to follow tradition and to recap the biggest news of the year. But by now, I am guessing that we have all read our fair share about the people and events who have impacted the last 12 months... if we take a larger vantage point (than our own relatively small domain name industry), these lessons from 2009 -- in my view -- could teach us all and most importantly, really shape the year ahead. more

DNS Amplification Attacks: Out of Sight, Out of Mind? (Part 3)

Previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2) offer background on DNS amplification attacks being observed around the world. These attacks continue to evolve. Early attacks focused on authoritative servers using "ANY" queries for domains that were well known to offer good amplification. Response Rate Limiting (RRL) was developed to respond to these early attacks. RRL, as the name suggests, is deployed on authoritative servers to rate limit responses to target names. more

Data Breaches Reported During 2016 Exposed Over 4.2 Billion Records

2016 broke the previous all-time high, set back in 2013, for the number of records exposed from reported data breaches. more

The Importance of IPRC in Asia Pacific

I believe and strongly support Internet Principle and Right Coalition (IPRC) Charter is an important edition of document supplementing the principles and rights of individual internet users in any developing and least developed country. Especially in Asia Pacific region where the need and use of such document is immense, as there is a gap in recognition and awareness of rights of internet users. more

The Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) Deception

Most of the good thrillers I tend to watch have spies and assassins in them for some diabolical reason. In those movies you'll often find their target, the Archduke of Villainess, holed up in some remote local and the spy has to fake an identity in order to penetrate the layers of defense. Almost without exception the spy enters the country using a fake passport; relying upon a passport from any country other than their own... So, with that bit of non-fiction in mind, why do so many people automatically assume that cyber-attacks sourced from IP addresses within China are targeted, state-sponsored, attacks? more

Internet Society Activities at EuroDIG 2016: Trust, Collaborative Security, Zero Rating and More…

Over the next two days (9-10 June), the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) takes place in Brussels, Belgium. With a theme of "Embracing the digital (r)evolution", EuroDIG has a full agenda and Internet Society staff will be participating in many aspects of the programme. For us, a primary focus will be at 11:30 CEST (UTC+2) on Thursday, June 9, when our President and CEO Kathy Brown opens the first Plenary with a keynote speech. more

Facebook, Privacy, and Cryptography

There has long been pressure from governments to provide back doors in encryption systems. Of course, if the endpoints are insecure it doesn't matter much if the transmission is encrypted; indeed, a few years ago, I and some colleagues even suggested lawful hacking as an alternative. Crucially, we said that this should be done by taking advantage of existing security holes rather than be creating new ones. more

Helping Haiti: The Email Community Response

It is inconceivable that anyone within viewing distance of a television or computer screen this week doesn't know about the disaster in Haiti. As of this writing, 50,000 bodies have been collected from the streets of Port-au-Prince. Millions of people, a number our brains simply aren't equipped to deal with, are now homeless. Help is needed now, and will be, for a very long time. more