Global Recession Appears to Have Also Hit the Malware Industry

According to reports by German software security company G Data, since the beginning of summer, the malware community appears to have been scaling back its activities. This considerable reduction is, according to the estimates of G Data security expert Ralf Benzmüller, not solely due to the forthcoming holiday season. The global recession appears to have also hit the eCrime economy. "This phenomenon emerges every year as something new. At the start of the holiday season, the number of malware programs falls. One reason for this is the worldwide onset of the travel season, which, based on experience, causes a drop in the number of active Internet users. However, this does not explain a collapse of more than 30 percent," says Ralf Benzmüller. more

The ITU Strategic Plan: Time to Terminate

In recent times, groups of people gather at the ITU in Geneva and write a "strategic plan" covering the next few years. Indeed, there is a current questionnaire to that effect. It is frozen in a world that existed 30 years ago, and by any measure, surreal and absurd. It needs to be terminated. Here is why. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has existed in various forms since 1850 to perform two basic functions. more

Syria’s Undersea Cable Repairs Will Take Down 60% of Nation’s Internet for Close to 10 days

Syrian Telecom has announced that 60 percent of the country's Internet will be down for close to ten days, starting Wednesday. more

Internet Society Urges Congress to Press Ahead with IANA Steward Transition

In a letter to key Congressional leaders, the Internet Society's CEO, Kathryn Brown, has urged Congress to allow the IANA stewardship transition to proceed without delay. The contract between the US Commerce Departments National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is set to expire on September 30. more

Happy OneWebDay: Celebrations are Underway Around the World

Today marks the third annual OneWebDay (Earth Day for the Internet) and communities around the world are holding events to learn about and advocate the Internet. Gatherings are being held in major U.S. cities as well as Melbourne, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Singapore, Tunisia and elsewhere. more

Massive African Internet Outage and the Fragility of Undersea Cables

Eight countries in West Africa reported Internet outages after damage was reported to four different undersea fiber cables. The most affected countries are Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Benin, with additional problems caused in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Lesser impact was felt in South Africa, Senegal, and Portugal. There has been no official word on what caused the problem, but it's likely due to the shifting of the seabed due to seismic activity. more

Republicans Barreling Toward a September Showdown Over IANA Transition

Republicans gear up for fight against internet transition," Ashley Gold and Tony Romm reporting in the POLITICO today. more

Neighbours Create Their Own Internet Service on Orcas Island

Faced with slow and outage-prone Internet access, residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, decided to design their own network and built it themselves. more

RIPE NCC Announces Launch of IPv6 Act Now! Website

The RIPE NCC today announced the launch of the IPv6 Act Now! website. RIPE NCC, a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, calls the website a one-stop destination on IPv6 where everyone can understand and provide a variety of useful information aimed at promoting the global adoption of IPv6. "The site is for anyone with an interest in IPv6, including network engineers, company directors, law enforcement agencies, government representatives and civil society." more

Information Warfare Publicly Admitted, No Longer Just a Tool for Espionage

Gadi Evron reporting today on Dark Reading: "A National Journal Magazine article called "The Cyberwar Plan" has been making waves the last few days in our circles -- it's about how cell phone and computer attacks were used against Iraqi insurgents by the National Security Agency (NSA). Its significance is far more than just what's on the surface, however. The article describes several issues and that in my opinion confuses what matters..." more

Mysterious Hacker Claims to Have Hacked a Group Linked to the NSA

A mysterious hacker or hackers going by the name 'The Shadow Brokers' claims to have hacked a group linked to the NSA and dumped a bunch of its hacking tools. In a bizarre twist, the hackers are also asking for 1 million bitcoin (around $568 million) in an auction to release more files. more

Latvian ISP Closure Dents Cutwail Botnet ...for a Whole 48 Hours

From MessageLabs' latest report: "Real Host, an ISP based in Riga, Latvia was alleged to be linked to command-and-control servers for infected botnet computers, as well as being linked to malicious websites, phishing websites and 'rogue' anti-virus products. Real Host was disconnected by its upstream providers on 1 August 2009. The impact was immediately felt, where spam volumes dropped briefly by as much as 38% in the subsequent 48-hour period. Much of this spam was linked to the Cutwail botnet, currently one of the largest botnets and responsible for approximately 15-20% of all spam. Its activity levels fell by as much as 90% when Real Host was taken offline, but quickly recovered in a matter of days." more

Consumer Reports: U.S. Consumers Lost Nearly $8.5 Billion to Viruses, Spyware, and Phishing

U.S. consumers lost almost $8.5 billion over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes according to latest projections from the Consumer Reports State of the Net survey. Additionally, report estimates that American consumers have replaced about 2.1 million computers over the past two years because of online threats. Survey has also reveals some hopeful signs such as declining chances of becoming a cybervictim -- consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. more

Expect Big Changes from Streaming Video

One of the biggest uses of bandwidth continues to be streaming video from the many online vendors like Netflix, Disney, Hulu, and many others. Final 2022 earnings reports show that this is an industry segment in crisis. Altogether, the losses for just these four video platforms were almost $11 billion in 2022. There are other big platforms like Apple, Google (YouTube), and Amazon that don't specifically report on the performance of the video streaming segment. more

Escalating US, Chinese Silent War on the Internet

Jason Mick reporting in DailyTech: "In the definitive cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, published in 1984, author William Gibson prophetically envisioned that wars of the future would be fought over the internet -- a new construct at the time. Today that prediction appears on the verge of coming true as we stand on the threshold of a vast digital battle. Agents in China, believed to be working for, or endorsed by the Chinese federal government are carrying out a secret cyberwar against the U.S. government and U.S. businesses. And that war appears to be escalating." more