Threat Intelligence

Old Dog, New Tricks: Gift Card Scams in Social Networks

In the past few months, a flurry of gift card scams leveraging such high-profile brands as Best Buy, Whole Foods and IKEA have emerged on Facebook. These scams often use the brand's logo, website URL, or general "look and feel" on Facebook "fan" pages to give the impression that these offers are legitimate. Some scams are even bold enough to include bogus, non-interactive fan comments to add a greater sense of authenticity to the gift card offer. To date, these scams have been successful at tricking tens of thousands of consumers. In just one day, for example, a fan page titled "IKEA Get a FREE $1000 IKEA Gift Card! (ONLY AVAILABLE 1 DAY)" registered 40,000 fans before being shut down. more

Three Things Registrars Must Do to Enhance Security

If the rise of phishing has taught us anything, it's that on the Internet, if a digital asset has value, there's somebody out there who wants to steal it. Whether it's a bank account password, a credit card number, a PayPal login, or even a magic sword in an online game, there's a fraudster somewhere trying to misappropriate it for his or her own nefarious purposes. Domain names have always been a target for such criminals. more

A Closer Look at Apple and Location-Tracking

There's been a lot of media attention to a report that iPhones track your movements. It's even reached the U.S. Senate. I'm underwhelmed. I think that the threat is overhyped. What is happening is that these devices create a hidden file with your location... more

Foreign Hackers Attack Canadian Government

An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government also targeted Defence Research and Development Canada, making it the third key department compromised by hackers, CBC News has learned. ... While there is no definitive proof, of course, that China was behind these attacks, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that points in that direction. China (allegedly) has a long history of engaging in espionage activities in order to gain access to information. In the United States, this is sometimes referred to as cyber warfare, but I think that cyber espionage is a better choice of terms. more

Internet Governance Has Become a Non-Issue

It's funny, but I recall the battle cry that the WWW was "free" back in its early days. When contributing game concept to the early and great gaming pioneers like Infocom, there was such a great esprit-du-corps amongst our team regarding the fun as well as utility that the WWW offerred. In retrospect, we were so naive. I recall the days when guys like Bill Gates prided themselves on being such a great "hackers" - it was a noble term back then.  more

Where Every Phisher Knows Your Name

Spear phishing is the unholy love child of email spam and social engineering. It refers to when a message is specifically crafted, using either public or previously stolen information, to fool the recipient into believing that it's legitimate. This personalization is usually fairly general, like mentioning the recipient's employer (easily gleaned from their domain name.) Sometimes they address you by name. Much scarier is when they use more deeply personal information stolen from one of your contacts... more

The Missing Link in Dotless Domains

Well more than a year ago, ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee published SSAC 053, its paper on single-label domain names - now referred to in the community as "dotless" domains - advising against their use. In a robust comment period, the community weighed in on the utility and safety of dotless domains, with some in favor and some opposed. To address the matter, ICANN has commissioned further study of the issue with an eye toward resolving the issue for new gTLD applicants. more

DoH Creates More Problems Than It Solves

Unlike most new IETF standards, DNS over HTTPS has been a magnet for controversy since the DoH working group was chartered on 2017. The proposed standard was intended to improve the performance of address resolutions while also improving their privacy and integrity, but it's unclear that it accomplishes these goals. On the performance front, testing indicates DoH is faster than one of the alternatives, DNS over TLS (DoT). more

Google Launcheds Advanced Protection Program for “High-Risk” Users

Coninsiding with October Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Google today announced the launch of Advanced Protection Program specifically "designed for those who are at an elevated risk of attack." 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

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. more

Cyberwar vs No Cyberwar

I was browsing CircleID the other day and came across Bruce Schneier's article on cyberwar. Schneier's article, and the crux of his point, is that the term cyber war and the threat of cyber warfare has been greatly exaggerated. The real problem in cyberspace is not the threat of cyber warfare wherein a foreign government, or possibly non-state actor, conducts a cyber attack on another nation. more

Another Day, Another Set of Hacking Attacks. News At 11.

While reading Reuters I came across a news article indicating that a number of high profile agencies - from the United Nations to the Canadian Government to government of Taiwan - were broken into over a period of the past five years. ... I'll say it right now, even though I haven't been briefed on it. It was China. more

ICANN Begins Public DNSSEC Test Plan for the Root Zone

The deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) for the root zone got an official start today with its public signing for the first time. DNSSEC for the root zone is a joint effort between ICANN and VeriSign, with support from the U.S. Department of Commerce to improve security of the Internet's naming infrastructure. Kim Davies, ICANN's Manager of Root Zone Services, says: "What happened today was the deliberately un-validatable root zone started being published on l.root-servers.net. It is anticipated this will be rolled out across the other root servers over the coming months. This phase is designed to identify any issues with the larger DNS response sizes associated with DNSSEC data." more

KnujOn Releases New Security, Abuse and Compliance Report

We have just issued a new report detailing abuse of the Domain Name System and Registrar contract compliance issues. The report specifically discusses several items including: Registrars with current legal issues; Illicit Use of Privacy-Proxy WHOIS Registration; A study on the contracted obligation for Bulk WHOIS Access; and more. more