Cybersecurity

Usenet, Authentication, and Engineering (or: Early Design Decisions for Usenet)

A Twitter thread on trolls brought up mention of trolls on Usenet. The reason they were so hard to deal with, even then, has some lessons for today; besides, the history is interesting. (Aside: this is, I think, the first longish thing I've ever written about any of the early design decisions for Usenet. I should note that this is entirely my writing, and memory can play many tricks across nearly 40 years.) more

Phishing 2020: A Concentrated Dose of Badness

How much phishing is there? Where is it occurring, and why? How can it be reduced? I and my colleagues at Interisle Consulting have just published a new study called Phishing Landscape 2020, designed to answer those questions. We assembled a deep set of data from four different, respected threat intelligence providers and enriched it with additional DNS data and investigation. The result is a look at phishing attacks that occurred in May through July 2020. more

Live Webcast Thursday March 28 of ION Singapore IPv6 and DNSSEC Sessions

For those of you interested in IPv6 and/or DNSSEC, we'll have a live webcast out of the Internet Society's ION Singapore conference happening tomorrow, March 28, 2013, starting at 2:00pm Singapore time. more

A Cynic’s View of 2015 Security Predictions - Part 3

A number of security predictions have been doing the rounds over the last few weeks, so I decided to put pen to paper and write a list of my own. However, I have a quite a few predictions so I have listed them over several blog posts. After all, I didn't want to bombard you with too much information in one go! Part three examines the threats associated with data breaches. more

On the Success of Malware

There's often a lot of discussion about whether a piece of malware is advanced or not. To a large extent these discussions can be categorized as academic nitpicking because, at the end of the day, the malware's sophistication only needs to be at the level for which it is required to perform -- no more, no less. Perhaps the "advanced" malware label should more precisely be reattributed as "feature rich" instead. more

Asia-Pacific Job Opening: Join Internet Society Deploy360 Programme to Promote IPv6, DNSSEC, More

Do you live in the Asia-Pacific region and are interested in accelerating the deployment of key technologies such as IPv6, DNSSEC, TLS or secure routing mechanisms? If so, my Internet Society colleagues involved with the Deploy360 Programme are seeking a "Technical Engagement Manager" based somewhere in the AP region. Find out more information about the position, the requirements and the process for applying. more

How to Prepare for the Day When Your Domain(s) Are Misbehaving

For a number of years, there have been many different high profile incidents where major websites were defaced, taken offline, or crippled due to issues related to their domain registration. Last night, there was an incident where several high profile domains went offline due to issues at their registrar, and they are now coming back online after what I am sure was a few crazy hours for their operations teams and management. more

Security Experts, Privacy Advocates Hopeful Rollout of 5G Can Eliminate Surveillance Vulnerabilities

Security experts and privacy advocates see the rollout of the new 5G wireless network as a possible solution to eliminate surveillance vulnerabilities that allow spying on nearby phone calls. 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

Building a Secure Global Network

Recently, the DNS has come under an extensive attack. The so-called "DNSpionage" campaigns have brought to light the myriad methods used to infiltrate networks. These attacks employed phishing, system hopping via key exfiltration, and software zero day exploits, illustrating that many secure networks may not be fully protected. more

Unintended Benefits of Trump’s Twitter Tantrum

Four years ago, progressive intergovernmental organizations like the European Union became increasingly concerned about the proliferation of hate speech on social media. They adopted legal mechanisms for removing Twitter accounts like Donald Trump's. The provisions were directed at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In June of 2016, a "deconstruction" of these mechanisms was presented to one of the principal global industry standards bodies with a proposal to develop new protocols to rapidly remove such accounts. 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

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

April 8 2014: A World Less Secure

Not long after the message that Microsoft will stop updating Windows XP from 8 April onwards, after extending it beyond the regular life cycle for over a year already, came the soothing message that malware will be monitored for another year. That may be good news to some, but the fact remains that this is not the same as patching. Remaining on XP leads to a vulnerable state of the desktop, lap top and any other machine running on XP; vulnerable to potential hacks, cyber crimes, becoming part of a botnet, etc. more

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Cybercrime Is a Bigger Threat Than Terrorism

An article in Forbes the other day reports on US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano's comments that 'cybercrime represents the "greatest threat and actual activity that we have seen aimed at the west and at the United States" in addition to "or other than Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-related groups."' ..."Napolitano cited a study commissioned by Symantec that put the total worldwide cost of cybercrime at $388 billion -- higher than the global market for heroin, cocaine and marijuana combined." more