Threat Intelligence

2010 Data Breach Report from Verizon, US Secret Service

A study conducted by the Verizon Business RISK team in cooperation with the United States Secret Service has found that breaches of electronic records in 2009 involved more insider threats, greater use of social engineering and the continued strong involvement of organized criminal groups. more

Swedish National Defense Radio Agency to Wiretap All Internet Traffic

Several people abroad have started mailing me and others asking if rumors of new legislation to be passed in Sweden on the 17th of June is for real. There are also reports in international forums starting to pop up. This is fairly old news, and I think that most of us are surprised that this has not generated more press both inside and outside Sweden earlier. This legislation will allow for the Swedish National Defense Radio Agency (FRA) to wiretap Internet traffic leaving the country... more

Popular RSS Reader Feedly Suffers Back to Back DDoS Attacks, Held for Ransom

Popular RSS reader Feedly has been hit by major distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks beginning 2:04am PST on Wednesday causing the service to be completely down for several hours two days in a row. (Second attack still undergoing as of the time of this post.) more

Routing Security - Getting Better, But No Reason to Rest!

In January 2018, I looked back at 2017 to figure out how routing security looked globally and on a country level. Using the same metrics and methodology, I've recently taken a look at 2018 to see if we're making improvements. The good news is, it seems like the routing system is doing better! But there is still much work to be done. Using BGPStream.com, a great public service providing information about suspicious events in the routing system, I analyzed the number of incidents... more

IoT From a Network Perspective: Learning to Navigate the New Realms

Let's play the analogy game. The Internet of Things (IoT) is probably going end up being like... a box of chocolates, because you never do know what you are going to get? a big bowl of spaghetti with a serious lack of meatballs? Whatever it is, the IoT should have network folks worried about security. Of course, there is the problem of IoT devices being attached to random places on the network, exfiltrating personal data back to a cloud server you don't know anything about. more

One Third of Companies Employing Staff to Monitor Content of Outbound Email, According to Survey

A recent survey of US companies conducted by Proofpoint has found companies increasingly concerned over data leaks via emplyee misuse of email, blogs, social networks, multimedia channels and text messages. From the report: "[A]s more US companies reported their business was impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information (34 percent, up from 23 percent in 2008), an increasing number say they employ staff to read or otherwise analyze the contents of outbound email (38 percent, up from 29 percent in 2008). The pain of data leakage has become so acute in 2009 that more US companies report they employ staff whose primary or exclusive job is to monitor the content of outbound email (33 percent, up from 15 percent in 2008)." more

US, Russia and China Stay Out of Paris International Cybersecurity Pact

US, China and Russia have refused to sign the French-backed agreement, Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, announced by French President at the UNESCO Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on Monday. more

Vietnam Primary Source of Spam in November

Vietnam is now responsible for more than 10% of the worlds spam, according to threat analysis from managed security firm, Network Box. November saw malware threat levels remain consistently high with Vietnam taking the number one spam spot from last month’s chart topper, Brazil. more

Kelihos Is Dead: Long Live Kelihos

The King is dead. Long live the King! Or, given this week's events, should the phrase now be "Kelihos is dead. Long live Kelihos"? It is with a little amusement and a lot of cynicism that I've been watching the kerfuffle relating to the latest attempt to take down the Kelihos botnet. You may remember that a similar event ("Kelihos is dead") occurred late last year after Microsoft and Kaspersky took it on themselves to shut down the botnet known as Kelihos (or sometimes as Waledac 2.0 or Hlux). more

Growth in Commercial Sinkholing Operations

The last couple of years have seen a growth in commercial sinkholing operations. What was once an academic method for studying botnets and other types of Internet-born threat, has more recently turned in to an increasingly profitable business for some organizations. Yesterday I published a blog on the DarkReading site titled Sinkholing For Profit, and I wanted to expand upon some aspects of the sinkholing discussion (there's only so much you can fit in to 800-ish word limits). more

KSK Rollover, Elliptical Curve Vulnerabilities, Surveillance and Privacy. Are We Building Trust?

ICANN just recently performed a Root Zone DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) Key Signing Key (KSK) Rollover. The recent KSK Rollover that took place on the 11th October 2018. The KSK Rollover has been successful and congratulations are in order. The Root Zone DNSSEC Key Signing Key "KSK" is the top most cryptographic key in the DNSSEC hierarchy. The KSK is a cryptographic public-private key pair. more

Google Announces Project Zero to Secure the Internet

Google today revealed a new initiative, named Project Zero, with the objective to "significantly reduce the number of people harmed by targeted attacks." To carry out the project, Google is recruiting a team of experienced hackers - "practically-minded security researchers" - to contribute 100% of their time toward improving security across the Internet. more

Opinion: UK Moving Quickly Down the Slippery Slope…

Admittedly, I'm a not Johnny-come-lately with regards to surveillance, intelligence, telecommunications, network security, law enforcement, and a cross-pollination of all-of-the-above. I actually have a very colorful background of working within all of the aforementioned disciplines - at one time or another - either through the U.S. Military, U.S Government contractors, private industry, etc. ... And unfortunately, I am not generally "shocked" very often by much of the abuses being perpetrated on unwitting Internet users, both by supposedly "trusted" entities (e.g. Democratic Governments, ISPs, etc.) more

ICANN Releases Guideline for Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Reporting

ICANN has released a set of guidelines to explain its Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Reporting. The guidelines serve two purposes, says ICANN: "They define the role ICANN will perform in circumstances where vulnerabilities are reported and ICANN determines that the security, stability or resiliency of the DNS is exploited or threatened. The guidelines also explain how a party, described as a reporter, should disclose information on a vulnerability discovered in a system or network operated by ICANN." more

DDoS Attacks Getting More Powerful, ISPs Report Concern Over New Threats and Budget Pressures

Massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against ISPs and their customers have almost doubled over the past year, according to a new security report. Attacks on networks making them unavailable to intended users -- also known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks -- exceeded 40 gigabits in the last year according to Arbor Networks' annual survey of ISPs from North America, South America, Europe and Asia. more