Cybersecurity

How Failure To Maintain IPv6 Is Hindering Law Enforcement

Recently, the FBI, DEA and even the Canadian Mounted Police have suggested that the switch to IPv6 is making it more difficult to track criminals online, those who would traffic in things such as drugs or child pornography, in addition to hackers, botnets, kidnappers and terrorists. Under IPv4, it wasn't very difficult to find offenders online via their IP addresses. The American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) would hand out the address and internet providers would log them into the public WHOIS database. more

Is Blockchain Causing More Cybersecurity Attacks in the Financial Industry?

There's a lot of misunderstanding about blockchain. A recent study by HSBC, for example, found that 59 percent of customers around the world had never heard of it. Yet, while that alone is quite telling, it's probably more alarming to consider the fact that very same poll revealed that 80 percent of people who had hard of blockchain did not understand what it is. This level of confusion isn't confined to the general population either. more

We Urgently Need a New Internet

Let's be honest about it. Nobody -- including those very clever people that were present at its birth -- had the slightest idea what impact the internet would have in only a few decades after its invention. The internet has now penetrated every single element of our society and of our economy, and if we look at how complex, varied and historically different our societies are, it is no wonder that we are running into serious problems with the current version of our internet. more

A European Perspective on the Equifax Hack: Encouraging Data Security Through Regulation

The Equifax hack is understood to have compromised the personal data of over 140 million individuals. Although recent hacks of other businesses have affected more individuals, the personal data held by Equifax is significantly more sensitive than the data compromised in other hacks and includes Social Security numbers, birth dates, current and previous addresses and driver licence details... (Co-authored by Peter Davis and Brendan Nixon.) more

Another Attack, Another Reason for the Urgency of DNSSEC Adoption

News broke this week about an attack in Puerto Rico that caused the local websites of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, PayPal, Nike, Dell and Nokia to be redirected for a few hours to a phony website. The website was all black except for a taunting message from the computer hacker responsible for the attack... more

No One is Immune: Qatar Crisis Started by a Targeted Poli-Cyber Attack

The Qatar Crisis started with a targeted Poli-Cyber hack of an unprecedented nature. Its shockwaves and repercussions continue to alter political and business fortunes, directions and paradigms not only in the Gulf region but globally. Almost everyone around the world is now aware of the this crisis that started early June. By mid July a Washington Post report cited US intelligence officials that the UAE orchestrated hacking of Qatari government sites, sparking regional upheaval that started it all. more

IETF 85 Begins Next Week In Atlanta - Here Is How To Follow Along

The 85th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) begins next week in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Over 1000 engineers, maybe as many as 1400 or more, from all around the world will gather in various working groups to discuss and debate issues relating to the open standards that define the Internet's infrastructure. more

First gTLD Signed: Dot Gov

Today is a historic day as the first generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) has been signed. Only a few other top level domains, all of which are country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs), have been signed to date. This step is part of the first phase of adoption. Authoritative DNS servers need to sign and publish their zones. The second part is for the resolvers on the Internet to validate the keys. Both systems working together will provide security in the DNS. more

SEC Reinforces and Expands Its Cybersecurity Guidance for Public Companies

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an updated guidance for public companies in preparing disclosures about cybersecurity risks and incidents. more

Deloitte: DDoS Attacks to Enter Terabit Era in 2017

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks will become larger in scale, harder to mitigate and more frequent, says Deloitte in its annual Global Predictions report. more

Testing IDNs

Internationalized (non-ascii) domain names (IDN) are a key issue for ICANN. Yesterday, the Board completed two days of workshop presentations about various matters (IANA, security, GAC relationships), and we were briefed on the IDN testing that is planned. I thought it might be useful to make clear the distinction between the tests (which are testing mechanisms for IDNs) and the very difficult policy questions that confront ICANN. As several people explained to me yesterday, they're different. more

Accountability, Transparency, and… Consistency?

ICANN Compliance now has two conflicting answers on record concerning the enforceability of RAA 378 on WHOIS inaccuracy. This is a topic of extreme importance and one we are trying to get to the bottom of. ...inconsistency needs to be resolved as it directly impacts the current RAA negotiations and certainly before new gTLDs are deployed. more

WHOIS Record Redaction and GDPR: What’s the Evolution Post-2018?

We all use the Internet daily. Practically every element of our reality has its equal in the virtual realm. Friends turn into social media contacts, retail establishments to e-commerce shops, and so on. We can't deny that the way the Internet was designed, to what it has become, differs much. One example that we'll tackle in this post is the seeming loss of connection between domains and their distinguishable owners. more

Evolving the Internet Through COVID-19 and Beyond

As we approach four months since the WHO declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, and with lockdowns and other restrictions continuing in much of the world, it is worth reflecting on how the Internet has coped with the changes in its use, and on what lessons we can learn from these for the future of the network. The people and companies that build and operate the Internet are always planning for more growth in Internet traffic. more

.XXX is Back on the Radar Screen

The DoC seems to have finally realized it went too far by using ICANN to serve the interests of some conservative groups, as mentioned in a previous post. The new story is now that the ICANN board did not reject the .XXX application as such, but only the agreement negotiated between ICM Registry and the ICANN staff at that time. How subtle these things are... more