As DDoS attacks become larger, more frequent and complex, being able to stop them is a must. While doing this is part science, a matter of deploying technology, there is also an art to repelling sophisticated attacks. Arbor Networks, Citrix and others make great gear, but there's no magic box that will solve all your problems for you. Human expertise will always be a crucial ingredient. more
It is certainly true that DDoS and hacking are on the rise; there have been a number of critical hacks in the last few years, including apparent attempts to alter the outcome of elections. The reaction has been a rising tide of fear, and an ever increasing desire to "do something." The something that seems to be emerging is, however, not necessarily the best possible "something." Specifically, governments are now talking about attempting to "wipe out" the equipment used in attacks. more
A team of developers including .SE (The Internet Infrastructure Foundation), LNetLabs, Nominet, Kirei, SURFnet, SIDN and John Dickinson have come together to create open source software, called OpenDNSSEC, to make it easier to deploy DNSSEC. Patrik Wallström, responsible for DNSSEC at .SE comments: "In order to spread the use of DNSSEC to an increased number of domain names, the management surrounding this technology must be simplified. Together with a number of collaborators, we're developing OpenDNSSEC. Leveraging our deployment experience, we will produce a well-packaged, easy-to-use and flexible DNSSEC tool that eliminates all manual procedures. Those in charge of name servers no longer need detailed knowledge about the protocol in order to use it." more
Usernames/email addresses and encrypted passwords for profile accounts created on the ICANN.org public website have been obtained by an unauthorized person, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced Wednesday night. more
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning about cybersecurity vulnerabilities in medical devices which have come after independent researchers, or the companies themselves, reporting the problems. more
Journalists and political activists critical of Kazakhstan's authoritarian government, along with their family members, lawyers, and associates, have been targets of an online phishing and malware campaign believed to be carried out on behalf of the government of Kazakhstan, according to a new report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). more
Ubiquiti Networks Inc., a San Jose based maker of networking technology, has disclosed that cyber criminals stole $46.7 million via a "business email compromise fraud involving employee impersonation." more
In August of last year I wrote in a blog about the importance of cryptech to wide-scale trust in the Internet. For those who don't know about it, http://cryptech.is is a project aiming to design and deploy an openly developed, trustable Hardware Security Module (HSM) which can act both as a keystore (holding your secrets and keeping them private) and as a signing engine. more
In a joint announcement today, Dutch research institute CWI and Google revealed that they have broken the SHA-1 internet security standard "in practice". more
Network security experts from across the U.S. government told a U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Tuesday that federal networks have been thoroughly penetrated by foreign spies, and that current perimeter-based defenses that attempt to curb intrusions are outdated and futile. more
Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GSTISC) today held its annual Security Summit on Emerging Cyber Security Threats and released the GTISC Emerging Cyber Threats Report for 2009, outlining the top five areas of security concern and risk for consumer and enterprise Internet users for the coming year... According to the report, data will continue to be the primary motive behind future cyber crime-whether targeting traditional fixed computing or mobile applications. "It's all about the data," says security expert George Heron -- whether botnets, malware, blended threats, mobile threats or cyber warfare attacks. more
Advanced threat detection company, Damballa has released findings of a new research on Wednesday, detailing the overblown nature of the mobile malware problem. According to the company, the research, based on Big Data (50% of US mobile traffic), was used to determine actual malware infection rates -- not just samples found, or vulnerabilities/theoretical attacks. more
Organizations who fail to implement effective cybersecurity measures could be fined as much as £17 million or 4% of global turnover, as part of Britain's plan to prevent cyberattacks. more
In recent weeks we've seen a range of press articles, security blogposts and public statements addressing real or perceived issues with network capacity and the domain name system (DNS) in particular. These range from concerns about the resilience of the DNS with questions on the impact of the number of registrations to news indicating that a tidal wave of fraud and abuse is hitting the world. more
With the COVID-19 health crisis evolving so quickly, it's hard to predict the extent of the long-term impact on business and the economy. While every business sector is facing different considerations, it's safe to say all are handling challenges from supply chain interruptions, rapid shifts to remote work, and massive changes in consumer spending and communication habits. more