Millions of households in UK will be paying a "broadband tax" in order to fund increase and improvement of broadband access in the country according to the Digital Britain white paper launched yesterday. BBC today reports: "One of the biggest surprises in the Digital Britain report was the news that everyone with a fixed line telephone would pay a broadband tax. At 50p a month the amount is unlikely to break the bank but experts are already questioning what it will buy." more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a new site to keep track of 'Terms of Service' for major websites such as Google, Facebook, eBay and others. The new website called TOSBack has been created to help users easily find privacy policies of various websites and to alert them when those policies are changed. "Some changes to terms of service are good for consumers, and some are bad," says EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "But Internet users are increasingly trusting websites with everything from their photos to their 'friends lists' to their calendar -- and sometimes even their medical information. TOSBack will help consumers flag changes in the websites they use every day and trust with their personal information." more
Google Fiber is boosting its internet speeds and availability by offering a new 5-gig tier in four of its existing markets. Nick Saporito, Head of Multi-gig and Commercial Product, made the announcement in a blog post on Valentine's day titled: Fall in love with fast -- 5 Gig is here! more
According to a recent survey conducted by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), 78% of service providers in Europe have plans to deploy DNSSEC within the next 3 years. On the other hand, the study also found 22% have no plans to deploy DNSSEC in the next 3 years. more
"The threat uses sophisticated techniques to evade detection and prepares the ground for more malware components," Lucian Constantin reporting in CIO: "Security researchers have discovered a new malware threat that goes to great lengths to remain undetected while targeting energy companies." more
Today UK's new consumer protection laws against hacking and cyber-attacks officially take effect. This legislation, a global first, mandates that all internet-connected smart devices - from smartphones and game consoles to connected refrigerators - meet stringent security standards. more
The Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms - a global Panel of stakeholders from various organizations and governments - today released key recommendations on how to evolve the Internet governance (IG) ecosystem to accommodate global needs for collaboration, interconnectivity and Internet growth. The report also presents a roadmap and timeline for the future management of the Internet. more
Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg made comments at the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona today stating he is sympathetic to Apple's position in its clash with the FBI. more
Web security company, ScanSafe reports that, in the past quarter, companies in the Energy industry faced the greatest risk of Web-based malware exposure, at a 196% heightened risk compared to other verticals. The Pharmaceutical and Chemicals industry faced the second highest risk of exposure at 192% followed by the Construction & Engineering industry at 150%. The Media and Publishing industry were also among those at highest risk, with a 129% heightened risk compared to other verticals. more
In the high-stakes world of internet domains, .eco was a dream green prize -- and is now finally going online, Lisa Johnson reporting in CBC News. more
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has seemingly joined forces with the marketing arm of the cellular industry in declaring that the spectrum between 7-16 GHz is now considered to be 6G. Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel recently announced that the agency would soon begin looking at the uses for this spectrum for mobile broadband. more
Before we answer the question, "Can a CDN help your website and application performance," let's take a moment for a short CDN 101. A CDN (content delivery or content distribution network) is a system of computers placed at different network nodes to provide the same content from the shortest distance possible. In other words, a CDN attempts to take pieces of content from your website and pass it to various nodes around the Internet. more
Today via its Online Security Blog, Google announced the release of its Browser Security Handbook aimed at providing web application developers, browser engineers, and information security researchers a "one-stop reference" to critical security attributes of modern web browsers. "Insufficient understanding of these often poorly-documented characteristics is a major contributing factor to the prevalence of several classes of security vulnerabilities," says the introduction to the 60-page document. more
A recent study by Symantec Norton and Sperling's Best Places has ranked 50 cities in the United States by "Riskiest Online Cities". The study included investigation of a number of factors including... more
In part one of this post we introduced the cyber response curve. In this post, we have outlined some observations which illustrate how different level of maturity and approaches can affect your cyber response curve. more
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