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WHOIS History API: Powering Domain Investigations

Domain Research and Monitoring: Keeping an Eye on the Web for You

Reverse WHOIS: A Powerful Process in Cybersecurity

Threat Intelligence / Most Viewed

Who Broke the WHOIS?

As Internet services go, WHOIS held a lot of promise but has repeatedly failed to live up to its potential; raising the question "is it time to retire WHOIS?" The concept behind WHOIS was simple. For each and every registered domain name, provide the facility for querying details about who owns it, who administers it, when was it created and when it will expire. Unfortunately the service lost its way practically from day one after failing to agree upon or adhere to any formal structure of the content it provides. more

Major Regulatory Changes Needed as Safety and Security Merge, Warns European Commission Report

As we increasingly move towards an IoT world, vendors of safety-critical devices will be patching their systems just as regularly as phone and computer vendors do now. Researchers warn that many regulators who previously thought only in terms of safety will have to start thinking of security as well. more

Officially Compromised Privacy

The essence of information privacy is control over disclosure. Whoever is responsible for the information is supposed to be able to decide who sees it. If a society values privacy, it needs to ensure that there are reasonable protections possible against disclosure to those not authorized by the information's owner. In the online world, an essential technical component for this assurance is encryption. If the encryption that is deployed permits disclosure to those who were not authorized by the information's owner, there should be serious concern about the degree of privacy that is meaningfully possible. more

NTIA Issues RFC, Asks for Input on Dealing With Botnets and DDoS Attacks

NTIA issued a Request for Comments today asking for broad input from "all interested stakeholders, including private industry, academia, civil society, and other security experts," on actions against botnets and distributed attacks. more

Encryption and Securing Our Digital Economy

As G20 leaders from around the world gather this week, Germany wants them to agree to a concrete plan -- one that includes affordable Internet access across the world by 2025, common technical standards and a focus on digital learning. Today, the G20 economies, like so many other economies around the world, are digital and interconnected. Digital services have opened up new avenues for sustainable economic growth. more

The Name Collision Conference

Earlier this week Verisign sponsored a two day conference on name collisions in the DNS. Despite the very short time frame in which it was organized, only a month from announcement to meeting, there were some very good presentations. I'll just hit some highlights here; all of the papers and slides are on their web site at namecollisions.net. Sunday morning started with a keynote by Bruce Schneier, who is not a DNS expert (and doesn't claim to be) but had some interesting observations on names in general. more

DNSSEC Becomes a Reality Today at ICANN Brussels

Attendees at the public ICANN meeting in Brussels today heard from over two dozen companies that have implemented or are planning to support DNSSEC, the next-generation standard protocol for secured domain names. It is clearer than ever before that DNSSEC is becoming a reality. more

At the Crossroads: The State of Domain Registration Data Services

The Internet's users rely on domain name registration information for vital purposes, including providing security, problem-solving, and legal and social accountability. The data is so important that users perform more than two billion WHOIS queries every day. ICANN has instituted new data policies over the last two years, and is also directing a migration to a new technical protocol, RDAP, that will replace WHOIS access in the near future. So at this critical juncture, how is it all going? more

More Targeted Phishing, Spam and Mobile Attacks; IBM Reports 150K Security Events Per Second

IBM today released the results from its annual X-Force 2010 Trend and Risk Report, identifying more targeted phishing, spam and mobile attacks. The report also finds cloud security continuing to evolve. "From Stuxnet to Zeus Botnets to mobile exploits, a widening variety of attack methodologies is popping up each day," says Tom Cross, threat intelligence manager, IBM X-Force. "The numerous, high profile targeted attacks in 2010 shed light on a crop of highly sophisticated cyber criminals, who may be well-funded and operating with knowledge of security vulnerabilities that no one else has. Staying ahead of these growing threats and designing software and services that are secure from the start has never been more critical." more

Frequency of DDoS Attacks Risen by 40% While Duration of Attacks Decrease

The frequency of DDoS attacks has risen by 40% year on year while the duration of attacks decreased with 77% lasting ten minutes or less, according to a new report released by Corero Network Security. more

Notes from NANOG 69

NANOG 69 was held in Washington DC in early February. Here are my notes from the meeting. It would not be Washington without a keynote opening talk about the broader political landscape, and NANOG certainly ticked this box with a talk on international politics and cyberspace. I did learn a new term, "kinetic warfare," though I'm not sure if I will ever have an opportunity to use it again! more

DDoS Attacks: What’s in Store for 2012?

According to Kaspersky Lab, 2011 has seen "numerous DDoS attacks with a variety of motives," many of which will "go down in the annals of cybercrime." As we look ahead to 2012, it's worth examining some of those motives to see what they portend. more

Web Server Botnets and Server Farms as Attack Platforms

Are file inclusion vulnerabilitiess equivalent to remote code execution? Are servers (both Linux and Windows) now the lower hanging fruit rather than desktop systems? In the February edition of the Virus Bulletin magazine, we (Kfir Damari, Noam Rathaus and Gadi Evron (me) of Beyond Security) wrote an article on cross platform web server malware and their massive use as botnets, spam bots and generally as attack platforms. Web security papers deal mostly with secure coding and application security. In this paper we describe how these are taken to the next level with live attacks and operational problems service providers deal with daily. more

Unexpected Behaviour Observed With DNS Root Servers After Cryptographic Change

The DNS root servers were reported by Verisign to be under unexpected attack from name servers across the Internet following ICANN's recent changes to their cryptographic master keys. more

DDoS Attacks: Don’t Be In Denial of the Risks

Unlike traditional attacks by hackers which breach a business's security systems, resulting in defaced websites, intellectual property theft and/or customer data theft, a DDoS attack focuses on making a business's Internet connected infrastructure (e.g. web servers, email servers, database servers, FTP servers, APIs, etc.) unavailable to legitimate users. A business's brand reputation, which can take years to establish, can be swept away in just a few hours from a single DDoS attack in the same way a natural disaster like a flood or earthquake can impact a traditional brick and mortar business. more