Threat Intelligence

U.N. Approves Resolution to Combat Cybercrime Despite Opposition From E.U., the U.S. and Others

The U.N. General Assembly has approved a resolution to start the process of drafting a new international treaty against cybercrime despite objections from the European Union, the United States and other countries. The Russian-drafted resolution received approval from a 193-member world body with a vote of 79-60 and 33 abstentions. more

CAUCE Director Neil Schwartzman Wins Prestigious MAAWG Award

CAUCE Executive Director Neil Schwartzman won the prestigious Mary Litynski award on June 08, 2011 for his contributions to Internet anti-abuse efforts, including the passage of Canada's Anti-Spam Law. more

Anti-Phishing Working Group Proposes Use of Secure Hashing to Address GDPR-Whois Debacle

The AntiPhishing Working Group (APWG) in a letter to ICANN has expressed concern that the redaction of the WHOIS data as defined by GDPR for all domains is "over-prescriptive". more

FTC Announces Internet of Things Challenge, Offers $25,000 for Best Technical Solution

The Federal Trade Commission is challenging the public to create an innovative tool to help protect consumers from security vulnerabilities in the software of home devices connected to the Internet of Things. more

Operational Challenges When Implementing DNSSEC

As a reader of this article, you are probably familiar with the DNS cache poisoning techniques discovered a few years ago. And you have most likely heard that DNSSEC is the long term cure. But you might not know exactly what challenges are involved with DNSSEC and what experience the early adopters have gathered and documented. Perhaps you waited with our own rollout until you could gather more documentation over the operational experience when rolling out DNSSEC. This article summarizes authors' experiences and learnings from implementing the technology in production environments as well as discusses associated operational issues. more

Use of DNS Firewalls Could Have Prevented More Than $10B in Data Breach Losses Over the Past 5 Years

New research from the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) released on Wednesday reports that the use of freely available DNS firewalls could prevent 33% of cybersecurity data breaches from occurring. more

Reality Check on the 5G Security MAGAverse

As chance has it, the attempt by NTIA to create a fake Trump Open 5G Security Framework MAGAverse as they headed out the door on 15 January is being followed this week by the global meeting of 3GPP SA3 (Security) to advance the industry's real open 5G security Framework. Designated TSGS3-102e (the 102nd meeting, occurring electronically), it continues the practice of assembling companies, organisations, and agencies from around the world every 8 to 12 weeks to focus on 5G security for current and future releases of 5G infrastructure. more

Google Notifying Half a Million Users Affected By DNSChanger

Google has announced that it has started undertaking an effort to notify roughly half a million people whose computers or home routers are infected with a well-publicized form of malware known as DNSChanger. "After successfully alerting a million users last summer to a different type of malware, we've replicated this method and have started showing warnings via a special message that will appear at the top of the Google search results page for users with affected devices." more

Spamford Wallace Gets Sued Yet Again

If there were a lifetime achievement award for losing lawsuits for being annoying, Sanford Wallace would be a shoo-in. Fifteen years ago, his junk faxing was a major impetus for the TCPA, the law outlawing junk faxes. Later in the 1990s, his Cyber Promotions set important legal precedents about spam in cases where he lost to Compuserve and AOL. Two years ago, he lost a suit to FTC who sued his Smartbot.net for stuffing spyware onto people's computers. And now, lest anyone think that he's run out of bad ideas, he's back, on the receiving end of a lawsuit from MySpace... more

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Botnet Takedowns (July 15, 2014)

The background is of course quite interesting, given how soon it has followed Microsoft's seizure of several domains belonging to Dynamic DNS provider no-ip.com for alleged complicity in hosting trojan RAT gangs, a couple of days after which the domains were subsequently returned -- without public comment -- to Vitalwerks, the operator of No-IP. This is by no means a new tactic for Microsoft, who has carried out successful seizures of various domains over the past two or three years. more

Microsoft, Federal Agencies Take Down Rustock Botnet

Neil Schwartzman writes: "There is a lot of press on the profound effect the take-down of the Rustock botnet, affected by Microsoft, some U.S. federal agencies, and countless others working in the background to assist in the effort. CAUCE has aggregated a few of the best stories and data-points. A community congratulations, and thank-you to all those involved!" more

Microsoft Takes Legal Action Against North Korean Cybercrime Group, Takes Down 50 Domains

Microsoft has taken control of 50 domains used by a North Korean cybercrime group dubbed "Thallium" to steal information from users, including government employees, think tanks, university staff members, and those working on nuclear proliferation issues. more

Hannaford Data Breach Plaintiffs Rebuffed in Maine

A US District Judge in Maine largely granted a motion to dismiss brought by Hannaford in a big data breach case... According to the court, around March 2008, third parties stole up to 4.2 million debit and credit card numbers, expiration dates, security codes, PIN numbers, and other information relating to cardholders "who had used debit cards and credit cards to transact purchases at supermarkets owned or operated by Hannaford." more

Overcoming Cloud Storage Security Concerns: 7 Key Steps

According to a 2013 TwinStrata survey, 46 percent of organizations use cloud storage services and 38 percent plan to adopt this technology in the near future. Cloud storage capacity demands are increasing 40 to 60 percent year-over-year, while storage density lags behind at 20 percent. The result? More data, growing demands for space and increasing security concerns. How do enterprises overcome cloud storage security challenges? more

Why DNS Is Broken, Part 1: Trust

So this Internet thing, as we discussed in our last article, is broken. I promised to detail some of the specific things that are broken. Implicit trust is the Achilles heel of the Internet... All of the communication between the resolver and the DNS server is in plain text that can be easily seen and changed while in transit, further, the resolver completely trusts the answer that was returned... more