U.S. Internet Speed Growth Too Slow, Will Take Over 100 Years to Catch Up With Japan

According to a recent study by Communications Workers of America's (CWA's), United States has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet. U.S. continues to fall far behind other countries. "...between 2007 and 2008, the median download speed increased by only four-tenths of a megabit per second (from 1.9 mbps to 2.3 mbps), and the median upload speed barely changed (from 371 to 435 kbps). At this rate, it will take the United States more than 100 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in Japan." more»

U.S. Military to Spend $4.4M on Network Monitoring Upgrades in Wake of Sophisticated Cyber Attacks

BBN Technologies, an advanced technology solutions firm, has been awarded $4.4 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a Scalable Network Monitoring program. "Scalable networking monitoring has become necessary as cyber attacks have grown more subtle and sophisticated," says BBN's announcement. "New technologies and applications provide new attack routes and have made traditional signature-based and anomaly detection-based defensive measures inadequate in both speed and sensitivity. To be effective in today's networks, detection algorithms must operate quickly, efficiently, and effectively in large, content-rich environments. To meet this challenge, the BBN team will develop a complete solution that is intrinsically scalable, designed for ultra high-speed deployment, and produces events that can be correlated with other network events to provide true positive alerts." more»

Russian Cyber Attack on Georgia, Government Websites Down or Replaced With Fakes

Russia has been accused of attacking Georgian government websites in a cyber war to accompany their military bombardment. In a statement released using a replacement website built on Google's blog service, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said: "A cyber warfare campaign by Russia is seriously disrupting many Georgian websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." more»

Majority of Active Malware Attacks Go Undetected, Says New Report

A recent test of leading anti-virus vendors over a thirty-day period has revealed that more than half of all malware threats on the Internet go undetected, according to a report issued today by cyber intelligence firm, Cyveillance. Data for the test was compiled from thousands of active malware threats that Cyveillance says it detects daily and was then fed through each of the vendors' anti-virus solutions in real-time. more»

Secret Arial Balloon Used During Defcon Finds 1/3 of Wireless Networks Unsecured

In the spirit of cyber security and the popular Defcon conference in Las Vegas, a group was successful in secretly launching a specially rented balloon used for real-estate arial photography, to scan the area for unsecured wireless networks. According to a report by Robert McMillan of IDG, the balloon, called "warballoon" scanned the Las Vegas strip and found that a third of about 370 networks were unencrypted. From the balloon's 15 story height, the group was able to survey about a 7 1/2 mile radius. Defcon director Jeff Moss has confirmed the report and a talk on warballooning adventures is scheduled today. more»

Blocking or Metering Broadband Access is a False Choice, Says New Report

n a report released today by the Free Press, Derek Turner, Research Director argues that, in light of recent FCC ruling against Comcast, it is a "false choice" to believe that "because application blocking is out of bounds, providers now will be forced to use some type of 'metering' to control network congestion." In other words, if ISPs are not allowed to block applications, then usage-based pricing is NOT their only other viable option, asserts Turner. more»

Meet the Feds: Recruiting Hackers

Speaking before an overflowing ballroom at the Black Hat security conference, representatives from U.S. government and FBI made assertions regarding government's active involvement in the fight against Internet threats, terrorism, and cyber crime. They also made it clear that they want hackers to join the effort. "The reason why we come here is we hope to attract folks to government service. And if we can't get you in service, then we want partnerships on working on security issues... It's people like yourselves that understand the threat that need to come into the government and help us address this problem," said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division. more»

Cyber Security Commission Compiling Recommendations for the Next U.S. Presidency

During a panel discussion at the Black Hat conference, four members from a U.S. private organization called "Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency," established by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), sought input from the security community as part of their mandate to "develop recommendations for a comprehensive strategy to improve cyber security in federal systems and in critical infrastructure". more»

ICANN Highlights DNS Vulnerability, Releases Domain Testing Tool

In response to the DNS vulnerability issue, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced the release of an FAQ and a web based domain testing tool. From ICANN's announcement: "Due to the distributed nature of the DNS, no one organization can implement a fix for this vulnerability. It requires the cooperation of all name server operators and DNS software vendors. However, ICANN sees an important goal in spreading awareness of the need to update Internet infrastructure to cope with the threat. The organization has been undertaking significant outreach efforts to top-level domain operators to advise them on the issue." more»

Daily Search Engine Usage Reaching Email Usage

Use of search engines on a daily bases has been steadily rising from about one-third in 2002 to current rate of just under 50% according to a recent report by Pew Internet & American Life Project. With this increase, the search engine use will soon be reaching that of email which is currently 60% of internet users. The study also points out that these "new figures propel search further out of the pack, well ahead of other popular internet activities, such as checking the news, which 39% of internet users do on a typical day, or checking the weather, which 30% do on a typical day." more»

Day 30: Kaminsky DNS Bug Disclosure

In a highly anticipated presentation, Internet security researcher Dan Kaminsky today gave details of the much talked about Domain Name System (DNS) vulnerability issue which has been intensely covered since it was publicly announced a month ago on Jul 8th. Although original plans entailed keeping the bug details undisclosed for 30 days in order to allow for necessary security patches to be implemented around the world, details of the bug were eventually leaked-and-confirmed 13 days after its public announcement. Even so, just hours ago in jam-packed ballroom during the Black Hat conference, Kaminsky delivered his 100-plus-slide presentation detailing the DNS flaw that, if exploited, could potentially "destroy the Web". more»

Internet Companies in Negotiations for Agreement on Code of Conduct in China

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, in negotiations with other Internet companies and human rights organizations, have reached an agreement on a voluntary code of conduct for activities in China and other countries that censor the Internet. The participants are reviewing the agreement for final approval. more»

Fury Over Dell Seeking "Cloud Computing" Trademark

Like the term Web 2.0, "cloud computing" is quickly becoming a meme without borders. And like the old one, the new phrase with the fuzzy definition has someone making a claim on its trademark, as Dell filed for a trademark on the term last year. The trademark application was recently noted by cloud computing consultant Sam Johnston, posting on a Google Groups cloud computing forum. Dell has also snatched up the Web sites cloudcomputing.com, cloud-computing.com, and cloud-computing.net as well as cloudcomputers.com. Cloudcomputing.com re-routes visitors to Dell's Cloud Computing Solutions Web site. more»

AT&T Joins Cloud Computing Bandwagon, Will Host U.S. Olympic Committee Website

AT&T is launching its own cloud computing services that will put the phone carrier in direct competition with the likes of IBM, Google and Amazon. The AT&T Synaptic Hosting is part of a $1 billion initiative that will see the carrier build five large-scale Internet data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia that will form the backbone of a new cloud computing service. The first test of this new cloud network will start when AT&T hosts the U.S. Olympic Committee's Web site during the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing. more»

Consumer Reports: U.S. Consumers Lost Nearly $8.5 Billion to Viruses, Spyware, and Phishing

U.S. consumers lost almost $8.5 billion over the last two years to viruses, spyware, and phishing schemes according to latest projections from the Consumer Reports State of the Net survey. Additionally, report estimates that American consumers have replaced about 2.1 million computers over the past two years because of online threats. Survey has also reveals some hopeful signs such as declining chances of becoming a cybervictim -- consumers have 1 in 6 chance of becoming a cybervictim, down from 1 in 4 in 2007. more»