Threat Intelligence

IPv6 Security Myth #3: No IPv6 NAT Means Less Security

We're back again with part 3 in this 10 part series that seeks to bust 10 of the most common IPv6 security myths. Today's myth is a doozy. This is the only myth on our list that I have seen folks raise their voices over. For whatever reason, Network Address Translation (NAT) seems to be a polarizing force in the networking world. It also plays a role in differentiating IPv4 from IPv6. more

A Cynic’s View of 2015 Security Predictions - Part 3

A number of security predictions have been doing the rounds over the last few weeks, so I decided to put pen to paper and write a list of my own. However, I have a quite a few predictions so I have listed them over several blog posts. After all, I didn't want to bombard you with too much information in one go! Part three examines the threats associated with data breaches. more

IPv6 Security Myth #2: IPv6 Has Security Designed In

Today we continue with part 2 of the 10 part series on IPv6 Security Myths by debunking one of the myths I overhear people propagating out loud far too much: That you don't need to worry about security because IPv6 has it built into the protocol. In this post, we'll explore several of the reasons that this is in fact a myth and look at some harsh realities surrounding IPv6 security. more

Software Insecurity: The Problem with the White House Cybersecurity Proposals

The White House has announced a new proposal to fix cybersecurity. Unfortunately, the positive effects will be minor at best; the real issue is not addressed. This is a serious missed opportunity by the Obama adminstration; it will expend a lot of political capital, to no real effect... The proposals focus on two things: improvements to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and provisions intended to encourage information sharing. At most, these will help at the margins; they'll do little to fix the underlying problems. more

DNSSEC Adoption Part 1: A Status Report

Where is the domain industry with the adoption of DNSSEC? After a burst of well publicized activity from 2009-2011 -- .org, .com, .net, and .gov adopting DNSSEC, roots signed, other Top-Level Domains (TLDs) signed -- the pace of adoption appears to have slowed in recent years. As many CircleID readers know, DNSSEC requires multiple steps in the chain of trust to be in place to improve online security. more

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. more

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. more

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. more

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. more

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). more

Secure Unowned Hierarchical Anycast Root Name Service - And an Apologia

In Internet Draft draft-lee-dnsop-scalingroot-00.txt, I described with my coauthors a method of distributing the task of providing DNS Root Name Service both globally and universally. In this article I will explain the sense of the proposal in a voice meant to be understood by a policy-making audience who may in many cases be less technically adept than the IETF DNSOP Working Group for whom the scalingroot-00 draft was crafted. I will also apologize for a controversial observation concerning the addition of new root name servers... more

Bashbleed - A Nasty Reminder Never to Forget Security 101

After the botched burglary at the Watergate Apartments, every scam and scandal that hit the headlines became a 'gate' -- Irangate, Contragate, you name it. The Heartbleed bug is possibly the closest thing to Watergate that this generation of computer security had seen till the past few days -- an exploit in a component that is "just there" -- something you utterly rely on to be there and perform its duties, and give very little thought to how secure (or rather, insecure) it might be. So, fittingly, every such catastrophic bug in an ubiquitous component is now a 'bleed'. more

Verisign Mitigates 300 Gbps DDoS Attack and Other Q2 2014 DDoS Trends

It has been another busy quarter for the team that works on our DDoS Protection Services here at Verisign. As detailed in the recent release of our Q2 2014 DDoS Trends Report, from April to June of this year, we not only saw a jump in frequency and size of attacks against our customers, we witnessed the largest DDoS attack we've ever observed and mitigated -- an attack over 300 Gbps against one of our Media and Entertainment customers. more

Anti-Spoofing, BCP 38, and the Tragedy of the Commons

In the seminal 1968 paper "The Tragedy of the Commons" , Garrett Hardin introduced the world to an idea which eventually grew into a household phrase. In this blog article I will explore whether Hardin's tragedy applies to anti-spoofing and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks in the Internet, or not... Hardin was a biologist and ecologist by trade, so he explains "The Tragedy of the Commons" using a field, cattle and herdsmen. 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