Opinions & Analysis

For anyone involved with DDoS defence, 2016 will be remembered as the year of Mirai. Until the botnet’s spectacular attack on Internet company Dyn on 30 September, things had been going relatively well. DDoS attacks were up, of course, but probably no more than expected. The feared reflection attacks that exploit any one of a family of common Internet protocols to multiply DDoS size had largely subsided, or were being dealt with. Mirai’s size was...

It was an event long predicted but when it finally happened security watchers were still taken aback. On 23 December 2015, three Ukrainian power companies suffered an unexpected, near simultaneous power outage that left at least 225,000 people without electricity just before Christmas, a bitterly cold time of the year. The incident affecting 30 sub-stations was bad enough but it quickly emerged that this was no technical glitch and had been caused by a carefully-planned...

To confused executives, today’s cybersecurity scene must look like an unsettling mixture of outrageous criminality and confusing technical jargon, laced by a creeping, destabilising paranoia. Ten years ago, cybersecurity was something technical people worried about. Five years ago, CSOs and CISOs were suddenly the men and women with furrowed brows. Today, in a period when data breaches, targeted attacks and huge denial-of-service events regularly shake the commercial Internet, the anxiety has spread to everyone, customers...

A new study reveals that nearly two thirds (61 per cent) of IT decision makers believe their employees regularly circumvent company security policies. Despite the fact that over half of those surveyed have invested in safeguards to protect their businesses against cyber threats in the past 12 months, careless employee behaviour could be leaving many organisations exposed to risks. The findings are part of Databarracks’ sixth Data Health Check report, which surveyed over 350 IT...

Since October Patch Tuesday there has been a lot of activity. Oracle released their quarterly CPU including an update for Java JRE, Adobe resolved a Zero Day in Flash Player, a new form of attack call “Atombombing” was identified by a security researcher, and there is some rising discussion around the Server 2016 servicing model. On the Horizon Actually more of a continuation from last month. On October 17th Oracle released their quarterly CPU including...

According to research commissioned by Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX) and carried out by Vanson Bourne* amongst 300 large UK organisations, more than half (54 percent) of those using open source technologies perceive external security threats as the biggest challenge to adoption. In fact, nearly half (49 percent) of the respondents whose organisations are not yet 100 percent open source still see proprietary, or closed source, technologies as more secure, with a further 43 percent concerned about...

On Friday, Oct. 21, DNS provider Dyn was knocked offline for much of the day, causing disruption to several well-known SaaS applications and internet sites, including Amazon, Twitter, GitHub and The Boston Globe. The company later that day confirmed that the cause was a large DDoS attack, and that it was an internet of things (IoT) attack using the newly-discovered Mirai botnet. The Imperva Incapsula product team has years of experience dealing with bots and...

By Naked Security writer Mark Stockley As a seasoned (some would say ‘power’) user you know how demanding good password selection can be – there are so many different things to consider. It’s a statement and a public performance; a password is a micro-haiku that lets the office newbie know they’re playing with the big boys when you hand them that careworn yellow post-it. It’s precious and you want to get it right because you...

Right now, someone you know will be making a purchase online. Several people will be downloading or sending an email. And it’s a safe bet that while you are reading this, at least one of your nearest and dearest will be engaging in a conversation on one social media platform or another. The unrelenting adoption of digital communications technology into our lives has meant the way we live we and the way we do business...

4 easy ways to be more mindful online by Mark Stockley Get back your mojo and fight off the FOMO with our four easy tips for lowering your stress online… Block out the ads At its worst, browsing the web with ads on is like trying to read a book whilst a hyperactive radio DJ shines a torch in your face and shouts at you about how they lose an ounce of belly fat every...