Threat Intelligence

Spamhaus Tells Us That Botnets Are Getting Worse

The Spamhaus Project just published a long article about the botnets they've been watching during 2014. As this chart shows, we're not making any progress. They also note that the goals of botnets have changed. While in the past they were mostly used to send spam, now they're stealing banking and financial information, engaging in click fraud, and used for DDoS and other malicious mischief.

Are the TISA Trade Talks a Threat to Net Neutrality, Data Protection, or Privacy?

On December 17th a US proposal for online commerce in a major trade negotiation, the Trade in Services Agreement ("TISA") leaked. A flurry of press releases and opinion pieces claim that TISA is a threat to the Internet. The headlines are lurid: "TISA leak: EU Data Protection and Net Neutrality Threatened" and "Leaked TISA text exposes US threat to privacy, civil rights"... Because I've spent years in Geneva regularly meeting with and advising negotiators on the networked economy I have a very different perspective.

Did the DPRK Hack Sony?

My Twitter feed has exploded with lots of theorizing about whether or not North Korea really hacked Sony. Most commentators are saying "no", pointing to the rather flimsy public evidence. They may be right -- but they may not be. Worse yet, we may never know the truth. One thing is quite certain, though: the "leaks" to the press about the NSA having concluded it was North Korea were not unauthorized leaks; rather, they were an official statement released without a name attached.

Can Big Companies Stop Being Hacked?

The recent huge security breach at Sony caps a bad year for big companies, with breaches at Target, Apple, Home Depot, P.F.Changs, Neiman Marcus, and no doubt other companies who haven't admitted it yet. Is this the new normal? Is there any hope for our private data? I'm not sure, but here are three observations... This week Brian Krebs reported on several thousand Hypercom credit card terminals that all stopped working last Sunday. Had they all been hacked?

One Year Later: Lessons Learned from the Target Breach

As the autumn leaves fall from naked trees to be trampled or encased in the winter snow, it reminds us of another year quickly gone by. Yet, for organisations that were breached and publicly scrutinised for their security lapses, it's been a long and arduous year. It was about this time last year that the news broke of Target's mega breach. Every news outlet was following the story and drip feeding readers with details, speculation and "expert opinion" on what happened, why it happened and who did it.

Wait and See Approach on Abuse

Wait and see approach on abuse attracts ICANN Stakeholder attention: A few weeks ago I made a detailed argument as to why product safety applies to domains, just like it does to cars and high chairs. I also argued that good products equal good business or "economically advantaged" in the long run. Then I really made a strong statement, I said if we don't actively engage other Internet stakeholders -- those that interact with our products, we would eventually lose the opportunity to self-regulate.

Which Domains Stand the Strongest Against Phishing Attacks?

The latest Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) Global Phishing Survey, which analyzed over 100,000 phishing attacks in the first half of 2014, examines the progress that top level domains (TLDs) are making in responding to phishing attacks that use their TLDs. The report finds the .INFO domain has the lowest average phishing uptimes as compared to other TLDs, such as .COM and .NET.

DNSSEC Adoption Part 3: A Five Day Hole in Online Security

Implementing security requires attention to detail. Integrating security services with applications where neither the security service nor the application consider their counterpart in their design sometimes make plain that a fundamental change in existing practices is needed. Existing "standard" registrar business practices require revision before the benefits of the secure infrastructure foundation DNSSEC offers can be realized.

Nameserver Operators Need the Ability to “Disavow” Domains

Yesterday's DDoS attack against DNSimple brought to light a longstanding need for DNS nameserver operators to have an ability to unilaterally repudiate domains from their nameservers. The domains under attack started off on DNSMadeEasy, migrated off to DNSimple and took up residence there for about 12 hours, causing a lot of grief to DNSimple and their downstream customers.

Domain Name Abuse Is a 4 Letter Word

There has been a lot of back and forth recently in the ICANN world on what constitutes domain abuse; how it should be identified and reported AND how it should be addressed. On one side of the camp, we have people advocating for taking down a domain that has any hint of misbehaviour about it, and on the other side we have those that still feel Registries and Registrars have no responsibility towards a clean domain space. (Although that side of the camp is in steady decline and moving toward the middle ground).