Cybersecurity

More Problems Crop Up With Universal Acceptance of Top Level Domains

I've often found truth in the famous George Santayana quote, "Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." That's an apt warning for what is currently happening - again - with the hundreds of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) that are launching ... and failing to work as expected on the Internet. First, a quick refresher: As most CircleID readers know, in the early 2000s, seven new gTLDs were launched: .AERO, .BIZ, .COOP, .INFO, .MUSEUM, .NAME and .PRO. Aside from Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs), these were the first top-level changes to the DNS since the early days of the Internet. more

Colloquium on Collisions: Expert Panelists to Select Papers, Award $50K First Prize

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the verb collide is derived from the Latin verb collidere, which means, literally, "to strike together": com- "together" + lædere "to strike, injure by striking." Combined instead with loquium, or "speaking," the com- prefix produces the Latin-derived noun colloquy: "a speaking together." So consider WPNC 14 - the upcoming namecollisions.net workshop - a colloquium on collisions: speaking together to keep name spaces from striking together. more

The Economy, Not Surveillance or Weapons Systems, Is the Real Source of National Security

The worldwide public discussion about surveillance produced by the Snowden revelations has so far largely missed a major strategic fault with national security arguments for continued mass surveillance: that economic damage to the technology sector but more fundamentally to the wider economy is a likely result. This damage is also likely to undermine security far more than any potential gains from continuing as we are - or continuing but with some transparency or narrowing that leaves the existing industrial scale surveillance system largely unchecked. more

On Mandated Content Blocking in the Domain Name System

COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) is a legislative bill introduced in the United States Senate during 2010 that has been the topic of considerable debate. After my name was mentioned during some testimony before a Senate committee last year I dug into the details and I am alarmed. I wrote recently about interactions between DNS blocking and Secure DNS and in this article I will expand on the reasons why COICA as proposed last year should not be pursued further in any similar form. more

Global Technical Internet Related Issues That Need Fixing

Given its engineering background, many positive contributions can be made by the engineering community in the broader ICT world to assist in addressing some of the broader internet issues, often addressed within the more limited telecoms environment.. Of course some of this is already happening; however much more work would be needed to strengthen the technical foundations of the internet. Just as an example, the type of issues that could be addressed by a broader ICT engineering foundation could include... more

We Have a Paradigm for Surveillance That’s Broken, Fit Only for the Analogue Past

As each day brings new revelations about surveillance online, we are starting to see increasing activity in national legislatures intended either to establish more control over what the security services can do to their nationals (in countries like the US), or to limit access by foreign secret services to the personal information of their citizens (countries like Brazil). Unfortunately, neither of these approaches address the underlying problem: we have a paradigm for surveillance that's fit for the analogue past, not the digital present, let alone the future. more

IETF Looking at Technical Changes to Raise the Bar for Monitoring

During a speech last week at the Internet Governance Forum in Bali, Jari Arkko, IETF's chair, re-emphasized it's efforts to ramp up online security in light of recent revelations of mass internet surveillance. "Perhaps the notion that internet is by default insecure needs to change," Arkko said. Significant technical fixes "just might be possible." more

Bruce Schneier to Speak About Internet Surveillance at IETF 88 Technical Plenary Next Week

How do we harden the Internet against the kinds of pervasive monitoring and surveillance that has been in recent news? While full solutions may require political and legal actions, are there technical improvements that can be made to underlying Internet infrastructure? As discussed by IETF Chair Jari Arkko in a recent post on the IETF blog, "Plenary on Internet Hardening", the Technical Plenary at next weeks IETF 88 meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada, will focus on this incredibly critical issue. more

Google’s Project Shield May Actually Be A Double-Edged Sword

Google has received a lot of press regarding their Project Shield announcement at the Google Ideas Summit. The effort is being applauded as a milestone in social consciousness. While on the surface the endeavor appears admirable, the long-term impact of the service may manifest more than Google had hoped for. Project Shield is an invite-only service that combines Google's DDoS mitigation technology and Page Speed service... more

Rodney Joffe on Security Vulnerabilities of Modern Automobiles

Rodney Joffe, Senior Technologist at Neustar, explaines that vehicles (beginning with 1998 models) are vulnerable to hacking, but manufacturers have been unable to fix the problem. In the video below, Joffe explains the challenge to cars and the possible threats that exist for other machines connected to a network. more

Canadian Government Quietly Pursuing New ISP Code of Conduct

If approved, the code would technically be voluntary for Canadian ISPs, but the active involvement of government officials suggests that most large providers would feel pressured to participate. The move toward an ISP code of conduct would likely form part of a two-pronged strategy to combat malicious software that can lead to cybercrime, identity theft, and other harms. First, the long-delayed anti-spam legislation features new disclosure requirements for the installation of software along with tough penalties for non-compliance. more

In Which We Consider the Meaning of ‘Authorized’: GIVAUDAN FRAGRANCES CORPORATION v. Krivda

What does authorized access mean? If an employee with authorized access to a computer system goes into that system, downloads company secrets, and hands that information over to the company's competitor, did that alleged misappropriation of company information constitute unauthorized access? This is no small question. If the access is unauthorized, the employee potentially violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) (the CFAA contains both criminal and civil causes of action). But courts get uncomfortable here. more

ICANN and Your Internet Abuse

In spite of the material we were presented with in Durban something has gone very wrong inside of ICANN Compliance. KnujOn has published a report which demonstrates that ICANN Compliance appears to completely collapse between September 2012 and December 2012. Following December 2012, ICANN seems to stop responding to or processing any complaints. It is around this time certain compliance employees start disappearing. This was not limited to the Sydney office as some would have us believe... more

Phishing: A Look Into the E-Crime Landscape

At the recent Anti-Phishing Working Group meeting in San Francisco, Rod Rasmussen and I published our latest APWG Global Phishing Survey. Phishing is a distinct kind of e-crime, one that's possible to measure and analyze in depth. Our report is a look at how criminals act and react, and what the implications are for the domain name industry. more

More than 85% of Top 500 Most Highly-Trafficked Websites Vulnerable

Over the last 5 years, hacktivists have continued the practice of redirecting well-known domain names to politically motivated websites utilizing tactics such as SQL injection attacks and social engineering schemes to gain access to domain management accounts -- and that, in and of itself, is not surprising. But what IS surprising is the fact that less than 15% of the 500 most highly trafficked domains in the world are utilizing Registry Locking. more