Intelligent APIs

Cloud-based security service offers web app and API protection

Web app and API exploits are among the leading threats to business at the moment. Organizations with a major web presence face malicious traffic and sophisticated bots trying to damage their brands.

In order to protect against these threats, Instart is launching a new Web App and API Protection (WAAP) platform. This is a cloud-based platform, powered by a single rules engine and a unified threat intelligence system, to defend against application vulnerabilities, sophisticated bots, and browser-based attacks.

By Ian Barker -
Spider web

Brits are more scared of spiders than cybercrime

Cybercrime and hacking has overtaken flying, dogs and clowns in the top 10 list of things the British are most scared of, but still only ranks in sixth place behind spiders, heights, snakes, dentists and small spaces.

Arachnids top the list despite there being less than a one-in-a-million chance of being bitten by a spider badly enough to warrant going to hospital in the UK.

By Ian Barker -
hacker

Attacks on IIS web servers soar over the last quarter

Attacks targeting IIS servers have shown a massive 782 times increase, from 2,000 to 1.7 million, over the last quarter according to a new report.

The report from threat protection specialist eSentire reveals that most attacks targeting IIS web servers originated from China-based IP addresses.

By Ian Barker -
spraypainted-1.1.1.1

Cloudflare launches 1.1.1.1 consumer DNS service with a focus on privacy

Today is both Easter and April Fool's Day, making it an absolutely atrocious day for announcing new products. After all, on Easter, many people are busy with their families -- it will be very easy for technology news to get overlooked. Not to mention, companies often announce fake products on April Fool's -- anything announced will be questioned as being either real or not.

That isn't stopping Cloudflare from announcing an ambitious (and real) new project, however. Today, the company announces a new consumer DNS service with a focus on privacy. Called "1.1.1.1" it quite literally uses that easy-to-remember IP address as the primary DNS server. Why announce on April Fool's Day? Because the IP is four ones and today's date is 4/1 -- clever. The secondary server is 1.0.0.1 -- also easy to remember.

By Brian Fagioli -
Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee: social media is too powerful and the web needs regulation to avoid weaponization

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the world wide web, and as has become traditional, its inventor has penned a letter for the occasion. In it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee calls for regulation of the web to prevent it from being "weaponized".

His letter suggests that "the web is under threat," and highlights a number of problems that exist, including the digital divide, privacy, fake news and the dominance of social media. He suggests that a regulatory framework could be needed to prevent a handful of companies from "weapon[zing] the web at scale."

Google Chrome logo

Google Chrome to mark all non-HTTPS websites "not secure"

While Firefox has been much better lately, Chrome remains the best overall web browser. Quite frankly, it isn’t a very fair fight, as Google essentially has unlimited resources to innovate. Chrome is fast, feature-full, and very secure. It does a great job of delivering the web to consumers while also helping to keep them safe.

Continuing its trend of protecting Chrome users, Google today makes a big announcement regarding web safety. Starting in July of this year, all HTTP websites will be marked as "not secure." This follows the company marking just some sites this way.

By Brian Fagioli -