CircleID

It may be years before the new internet protocol IPv6 takes over from the current IPv4, but a security researcher is warning that many systems -- corporate and personal -- are already open to attack through channels that have been enabled on their machines to support IPv6 traffic, according to the Wired report by Kim Zetter. Joe Klein, a security researcher with Command Information, says many organizations and home users have IPv6 enabled on their systems by default but don't know it. They also don't have protection in place to block malicious traffic, since some intrusion detection systems and firewalls aren't set up to monitor IPv6 traffic, presenting an appealing vector through which outsiders can attack their networks undetected.»

European researchers have launched a beta version of a peer-to-peer streaming video service that is intended to eventually replace traditional broadcasts. This is the latest development from the P2P-Next project which has announced its trial program for streaming live video in true 4th generation P2P system using a zero-server approach.»

According to the most recent MessageLabs Intelligence monthly report, Switzerland has become the most spanned nation. From the report: "In June, Switzerland leapfrogged Hong Kong as the most spammed country with levels reaching 84.8% of all email. Many countries received a slight decrease in spam levels, with a few increases elsewhere, for example, spam in UAE rose by 7.4%, the highest increase this month. Spam levels in the US reached 68.8% in June, 77.8% in Canada and 74.3% in the UK. Germany's spam rate reached 73.5% and 73.2% in the Netherlands. Spam levels in Australia were 66.9%, 76.6% in China and 70.7% in Japan."»

Sen. Barack Obama, the U.S. presidential candidate outlined in a speech yesterday, what he envisioned for a cyber-security infrastructure that would protect the nation's computer networks and strengthen science and computer education programs. "I'll declare our cyber-infrastructure a strategic asset, and appoint a national cyber adviser who will report directly to me. We'll coordinate efforts across the federal government, implement a truly national cyber-security policy, and tighten standards to secure information -- from the networks that power the federal government, to the networks that you use in your personal lives."»

The .Me Top-Level Domain (TLD) Registry officially opened today for everyone on a first-come, first-served basis at 15:00UTC July 17, 2008. In follow up to the launch of this TLD, companies, organizations and members of the public where told that they can get a "Web presence that is truly personal, and have their new Web site working within minutes!" But apparently the process hasn't gone as smoothly as planed.»

Authorities have arrested more than 20 people in Romania who are suspected of running online fraud schemes, according to media reports. The Tuesday arrests were confirmed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has been working with Romanian officials on cybercrime in recent months. The FBI would say only that the agency is aware of the arrests and because "this is an ongoing matter, we will have no further comment at this time." The losses caused by the cybercrime ring is estimated to reach millions of euros.»

Testimony received during the sentencing hearing for notorious spammer Robert Alan Soloway has offered an inside look at the big business of online fraud. Although anti-spam efforts implemented by ISPs have deterred many small-time spammers, sophisticated players remain active and they have developed tools to make their efforts easier. From the stand on Monday, investigators revealed some of the techniques that Soloway allegedly used to send out massive amounts of email. After the government seized Soloway's computer servers, investigators found files with as many as 10 million email addresses on each server along with Dark Mailer software on each server.»

Google on Friday was sued for fraud, business code violations, and unjust enrichment, claims arising from the company's alleged sale of low-quality ads, reports Thomas Claburn, of InformationWeek. The class-action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., by lawyers from San Francisco-based Schubert Jonckheer Kolbe & Kralowec. The plaintiff is attorney Hal K. Levitte, who advertised his legal services though a Google AdWords pay-per-click campaign last year. Should the lawsuit move forward as a national class action and succeeds in claming that all Google's AdWords advertisers have spent a similar percentage of their ad budgets on low-quality ads, Google could be liable for a significant sum.»

ISC's IPv6 infrastructure was significantly improved by a donation of a GigE link from NTT America, a global IP network services provider and operator of the largest Tier 1 IPv6 backbone. The IPv6 transit provided by NTT America to ISC is being used to support F-root name server operations, many country-code top level domains that are ISC DNS hosting guests and Hosted@ISC participants, which include kernel.org, Mozilla, FreeBSD, Internet Archive and other public benefit software projects.»

Defendants and plaintiffs in two copyright infringement lawsuits against YouTube have reached a deal to protect the privacy of millions of YouTube watchers during evidence discovery, a spokesman for Google said late Monday. In a related blog post, Google says, "we are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information." On July 4, YouTube had received a court order to produce viewing history data of its users to Viacom.»

Finjan’s Malicious Code Research Center has released a report on the latest developments of today’s Crimeware business environment. "With the transition of cybercrime from amateur hacker attacks to highly professional cybercrime business models," says the report. "We see that the organizational structure of cybercriminals reflects this trend. Individual hackers operating independently or groups of hackers with common goals have been replaced by hierarchical cybercrime organizations were each cybercriminal has his own well-defined role and reward system. The current cybercrime organizations bear an uncanny resemblance to organized crime organizations such as the Mafia."»

According to a report released by market researcher, Nielsen, 40 million US mobile subscribers (15.6 percent) actively use the mobile Internet, making the US a leader in mobile Internet adoption. In 16 countries tracked, the US leads in penetration, followed by the UK (12.9 percent) and Italy (11.9 percent). More consumers are expected to catch on with increased positive mobile Internet user experiences, anchored by increasing device capability, speed and content optimization.»

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has thrown its weight behind cloud computing, signing a deal with HP to build out an ambitious cloud infrastructure, which will include storage and server capacity. The Web-based cloud model will enable U.S. armed forces personnel to configure and access a server on the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) network within 24 hours, according to the Agency, which oversees the U.S. military's battlefield command and control systems.»

Notorious spammer Robert Alan Soloway is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday by the U.S. District Court in Seattle after pleading guilty to single counts of mail fraud, e-mail fraud, and tax evasion. The long list of individuals testifying in federal court for the sentencing of the so-called 'King of Spam' has resulted in an unusual two-day hearing which began on Friday. Soloway is the second person to be convicted of criminal spamming under the 2004 "Can-Spam" law.»

The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Kevin Martin, intends to recommend that Comcast, U.S.'s largest cable company, be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. Martin said Comcast has "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access, regardless of the level of traffic, and failed to disclose to consumers that it was doing so.»

Researchers at the University of Sydney's Centre for Ultra-high bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), have developed technology that is reported to boost the throughput of existing networks by 100-fold without added costs to consumers, and it's all because of a scratch on a piece of glass. Professor Ben Eggleton, The director or the research center says that those optical fibers have a huge capacity to deliver more, but until now information has been moving at a slow rate. "The scratched glass we've developed is actually a photonic integrated circuit," Eggleton said.»

More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate has given final approval today to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program. Senator Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee for president, voted for the plan amid supporters expressed concerns that he would backtrack on his opposition to telecom immunity.»

Google has recently announced that it has succeeded in working with eBay and PayPal, also owned by eBay, to fight phishing by using authentication standards DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). According to Google, this is the main tool used by Gamil to keep spam out of its inboxes. However, Brad Taylor, Google's Software said in a blog post, that "these systems can only be effective when high volume senders consistently use them to sign their mail -- if they're sending some mail without signatures, it's harder to tell whether it's phishing or not. Well, I'm happy to announce today that by working with eBay and PayPal, we're one step closer to stopping all phishing messages in their tracks." Google hopes this will set a good example for other organizations to follow suit and work towards making email trustworthy.»

Recent blast of emails linked to Strom Warm attempt to exploit client-side vulnerabilities by stating that the U.S. army has invaded Iran. The email is also reported to contain links to videos. The text reads:

“Just now US Army’s Delta Force and U.S. Air Force have invaded Iran. Approximately 20000 soldiers crossed the border into Iran and broke down the Iran’s Army resistance. The video made by US soldier was received today morning. Click on the video to see first minutes of the beginning of the World War III. God save us.”»

Reported by the Financial Times today: "The world's biggest telecoms companies are rushing to add capacity on inter-continental routes, to keep up with booming demand fuelled in part by consumers downloading bandwidth-hungry video content from YouTube, iTunes and other sites over broadband networks. Demand is also being driven by fast-growing telecom and internet markets in some developing countries, and by the need to build additional "redundancy" into the network undersea cables to protect against damage and failure."»