We just released a new whitepaper outlining the upcoming types of cyberthreats and malicious activity affecting digital consumers, and how organizations and operators can address them. Below is an excerpt. To read the full report, click here to download.

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Last week we launched a new whitepaper by Patrick Donegan of Heavy Reading, titled “Innovation in Communications Services: Breaking with the Past without Waiting for the Future.” The paper discusses a ‘third way’ to service provider digital transformation, utilizing DNS. Read the blog post below for an excerpt from Donegan’s paper, which you can download in its entirety here.

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Locky is a new cyberthreat that has received a lot of attention in security circles over the last few months because it has been unusually successful. Locky is advanced ransomware that encrypts a person’s files and holds them for ransom. It uses a number of different technologies to avoid being detected or blocked and takes great care to hide its path back to the attackers. The code is obfuscated to avoid detection by antivirus and malware software. The blackmailers communicate through TOR and only accept Bitcoin as payment, making it nearly impossible to discover who they are.

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There’s been a lot of buzz about digital transformation. For me, transformation is really about service providers delighting their customers. The other day I was speaking with a provider in EMEA that recently did a pilot with our N2 Reach subscriber communications solution to upsell higher data usage options to subscribers who are at 80% of bandwidth. We see this use case every day, especially as video streaming usage is escalating. The pilot was so successful that they’re now rolling out a program to their entire subscriber base. Digital transformation is really about thinking of customers, their changing needs, and device and communication preferences, and meeting them where they are most likely to pay attention.

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When it comes to digital transformation, an interesting paradox exists for Communication Service Providers (CSPs): great demand has been placed on their networks by over-the-top players, content providers and even device manufacturers, forcing providers to focus their efforts on network infrastructure projects to keep pace. At the same time, CSPs haven’t been able to concentrate on their own digital product and service offerings. While most of the world is moving to digital, CSPs have been hindered from implementing the necessary strategies and technologies to capitalize on this growing movement. Market demands have forced them to enable this shift while they anxiously watch from the sidelines—awaiting their turn. Now, the tide is turning as the capacity and cost efficiencies that providers have built into their networks are allowing them to re-focus and get in front of the digital transformation imperative.

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Achieving digital transformation requires a new approach to business and technology. But it doesn’t have to require a major investment in time and money to do it effectively. What may come as a surprise to many is that DNS—which is commonly described as the “phone book” of the Internet, as it maps application requests and domain names with IP addresses—can be leveraged to accelerate this major shift and deliver a new set of competitive subscriber-centric services.

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Guest post by Sue Rudd, Director, Service Provider Analysis, Strategy Analytics

Digital transformation means many things to many people—but to communication service providers (CSPs) today, it means not only moving to ‘All-IP’ networking and the Cloud, but also digitally transforming their networks and businesses to add value with more customer-centric innovative new services. While most CSPs around the globe appreciate this imperative, many are not sure how to achieve it. To help providers sort through the digital transformation maze, Strategy Analytics just published a new whitepaper that outlines some initial thoughts on the necessary technology and business strategy CSPs must adopt to remain competitive.

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Nominum Data Science detected a huge wave of malicious DNS queries rolling across the Internet Dec 14 and 15 2015, adding to stress for service providers already have around the holidays.  Since it’s one of the peak buying seasons on the Internet most networks are locked down and operations teams are on alert.   Many unfortunately were probably not expecting a huge surge in DNS DDoS as it has been fairly consistent the past few months.  ThreatAvert customers were protected but many other networks likely experienced adverse impact – substantial slowdowns or even outages for servers that saw high volumes of queries.

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Android fans were probably chuckling over the XcodeGhost malware news – hackers don’t often penetrate Apple’s defenses. This provoked the Nominum Data Science team to take a look at what’s happening with malware targeting Android. Common wisdom is Android is exposed because there’s less rigor in the development and supply chain, and third party app stores with no protections are popular. Determined hackers can allegedly subvert defenses and get various kinds of exploits placed on mobile devices running the highly popular operating system. But what does the data show?

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The DNS offers visibility into many kinds of Internet trends including various security threats. We’ve reported extensively on DNS DDoS and Nominum Data Science also tracks botnet activity. In this case queries for Command and Control (C&C) domains for the recently disclosed XcodeGhost malware were observed in September. Infected development tools were reported to have been used for the popular iOS app WeChat.

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