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

Facebook In Talks with U.S. Government About Offering Its Free Internet Service

Facebook is talking to the White House about giving US citizens ‘free’ Internet access via its Free Basics program, Brian Fung reporting in the Washington Post today. 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

Pro-Trump Russians Accused for Democratic National Committee Email Hack, FBI Investigating

"DNC Hack Prompts Allegations of Russian Involvement," Damian Paletta and Devlin Barrett reported in the Wall Street Journal today: "U.S. authorities said they are still investigating who perpetrated the hack, but cybersecurity experts said the email release resembled past examples of political interference that other countries have tied to Russia." more

Chrome Browser Surpasses Safari in US

Google's internet browser Chrome has overtaken Apple's Safari in the US for the first time on a weekly basis according to website analytics service provider, StatCounter. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that for the week beginning 21 June Chrome overtook Safari to claim third place in the US browser market. "Chrome with 8.97% took third place in the US browser market ahead of Safari with 8.88%. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the US Internet browser market with 52%, followed by Firefox (28.5%)." more

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

German Police Force Shifts More Focus to Darknet After Mass Shooting

"German police will do more to fight crime committed on the dark net'," was the announcement days after mass shooting by a gunman with weapon bought from the darknet. "We see that the darknet is a growing trading place and therefore we need to prioritize our investigations here," said Holger Muench, head of Germany's Federal Police (BKA). more

Making Sure March Madness Doesn’t Live Up to Its Name

Last month, I talked about keeping the Winter Olympics from clogging up your networks as employees raced to stream live events during the workday. Well, in the U.S., we are in the middle of NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, the annual "madness" repeats itself all over again. And let's be honest, most of us want to sneak a peek at the scores and witness some of the thrilling upsets that happen every year. more

ICANN Is Violating Its Legal Agreements with the U.S. Government – Who’s Next?

In April, I published an article, The Multistakeholder Moment of Truth: Will Stakeholders Hold ICANN Accountable?, alerting stakeholders that ICANN is violating its legal agreements with the U.S. Government -- namely the InterNIC licensing agreement and merged Memorandum of Understanding. At that time, I warned that it is essential for stakeholders not to remain silent in the face of this transgression, "hoping that such behavior left unchecked will end of its own accord." 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

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

10th GigaNet Annual Symposium - Call for Proposals

On Monday, 9 November 2015, the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) will hold its 10th annual symposium in João Pessoa, Brazil. The event will take place one day before and in the same location as the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 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

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

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