Cybersecurity

Google Buys VeriSign (not really)

No that's not really happening, Google is not buying VeriSign. But given Google's ravenous appetite for data, it might find VeriSign quite attractive. VeriSign has both root domain name servers and servers for the .com and .net top level domains (TLDs). VeriSign could data mine the queries coming into those servers and produce a very valuable real-time stream of what users on the net are doing... Google just bought Postini -- and one would have to be fairly naive to believe that Google does not intend to dredge through all... more

Emerging Cyber-Security Threats and Implications for the Private Sector

The new gTLD program will have a profound impact on the private sector's increasing dominance over Internet information resources and ownership of critical registry technical infrastructure assets. It is already anticipated that only the private sector will take full advantage of the commercial possibilities... However, the successful introduction of new gTLDs will also create new challenges of security for the private sector. more

“It’s Always DNS!” Why DNS Is the Biggest Single Point of Failure in the New Norm

Many in the network security field may be familiar with the phrase: "It's always DNS."  This is a popular meme within the industry, often making reference to the internal domain name system (DNS), the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) part of a company's online network, that whenever there is a network issue, it's always an issue with DNS. more

Challenges in Measuring DNS Abuse

From the creation of DNSAI Compass ("Compass"), we knew that measuring DNS Abuse1 would be difficult and that it would be beneficial to anticipate the challenges we would encounter. With more than a year of published reports, we are sharing insights into one of the obstacles we have faced. One of our core principles is transparency and we've worked hard to provide this with our methodology. more

Why Not an Interim Step Until DNSSEC is Ready?

I'm interested in CircleID community's take on NeuStar's recent announcement of Cache Defender. While only effective for domains the company is authoritative for, that does cover a large number of big Internet brands and financial institutions. Why wouldn't an ISP deploy this now, while waiting for all the myriad issues involved in DNSSEC to be resolved? more

Domains Under the Most-Abused TLDs: Same Old DNS Abuse Trends?

While threat actors can use any domain across thousands of top-level domains (TLDs), they often have favorites. For instance, you may be familiar with Spamhaus's 10 most-abused TLDs for spamming. WhoisXML API researchers recently built on this list by analyzing 40,000 newly registered domains (NRDs) that sported some of the listed unreputable TLDs. We called this study "DNS Abuse Trends: Dissecting the Domains Under the Most-Abused TLDs." more

Forgotten Principles of Internet Governance

Suddenly internet governance has become a hot topic. Words and phrases fly back and forth but minds rarely meet. We do not have discussion, we have chaos. We are not moving forwards towards a resolution. It's time to step back and review some basic principles. 1. Principle: The internet is here to serve the needs of people (and organizations of people); people are not here to serve the internet. Corollary: If internet technology does not meet the needs of users and organizations than it is technology that should be the first to flex and change. more

Domain Name Abuse Is a 4 Letter Word

There has been a lot of back and forth recently in the ICANN world on what constitutes domain abuse; how it should be identified and reported AND how it should be addressed. On one side of the camp, we have people advocating for taking down a domain that has any hint of misbehaviour about it, and on the other side we have those that still feel Registries and Registrars have no responsibility towards a clean domain space. (Although that side of the camp is in steady decline and moving toward the middle ground). more

Paul Vixie on How the Openness of the Internet Is Poisoning Us

In a video interview conducted during the NSCS ONE conference, Paul Vixie CEO of Farsight Security further discusses the topic of his presentation titled: "Defective by Design -- How the Internet's Openness is Slowly Poisoning Us". more

The London Process Arrived in Budapest: Another Travel Circus for the Internet Community?

The Budapest Conference on Cyberspace brought together nearly 20 heads of states and ministers plus 700 high level experts from various stakeholder groups from 60 countries. However, after two days of discussion there is less clarity where the so-called "London Process" - established by the British Foreign Minister William Hague in November 2011 in London - will go. The next meeting is scheduled for October 2013 in Seoul. Another flying circus for another Internet Governance talking shop? more

2.6 Billion Records Were Stolen, Lost or Exposed Worldwide in 2017, an 88% Increase From 2016

Over the past five years, nearly 10 billion records have been lost, stolen or exposed, with an average of five million records compromised every day. more

Lights Going Out on the Internet? Not Just Yet

In his article titled, "End of Life Announcement", John Walker (author of the Speak Freely application) makes a few arguments about Network Address Translation (NAT) that are simply not true: "There are powerful forces, including government, large media organisations, and music publishers who think this situation is just fine. In essence, every time a user--they love the word "consumer"--goes behind a NAT box, a site which was formerly a peer to their own sites goes dark, no longer accessible to others on the Internet, while their privileged sites remain. The lights are going out all over the Internet. ...It is irresponsible to encourage people to buy into a technology which will soon cease to work." more

Why Are the EU Data Protection Authorities Taking Away Our Fundamental Right to be Safe?

What if we created a rule that gave everyone - good or bad - the right to hide their license plate, where they live, who they are, and just go incognito? What if we made it a right to walk into any building in the world, and simply say "No, thank you" when the security guards asked for one's identification? The criminals would celebrate, and we'd all be utterly alarmed. We would immediately be afraid for our personal safety. more

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts for 2010

Looking back at 2010, here is the list of top ten most popular news, blogs, and industry news on CircleID in 2010 based on the overall readership of the posts (total views as of Jan 1, 2011). Congratulations to all the participants whose posts reached top readership and best wishes to the entire community for 2011. Happy New Year! more

Botnets Shift Focus to Credential Abuse, Says Latest Akamai Report

Akamai's Fourth Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet, was released today in which it states that the analysis of more than 7.3 trillion bot requests per month has found a sharp increase in the threat of credential abuse, with more than 40 percent of login attempts being malicious. more