Tag Archive for: time

How successful are the most expensive websites of all time?

/in


The widespread outages around 1000 GMT also hit the UK government website, CNN and the BBC – Copyright POOL/AFP PHILIPPE DESMAZES

A new study reveals website traffic of the costliest domain names in history. This review finds the most expensive domain name ever currently receives 88,000 visitors per month. Remarkably, the third costliest domain name has no registered monthly traffic.

How much is a good website name worth? People and companies have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for specific domain names. Is this always worth the return on investment? Maybe not is the answer.

A new study by web hosting provider Hostinger has investigated the top seven most expensive domain names ever, to see how the sites are doing now. The data, provided to Digital Journal for review, assesses what traffic these sites receive and whether the outlay was worth it.

As to the most expensive websites:

Voice.com

  • Cost: $30 million in 2019
  • Current monthly traffic: 88.8k

The voice.com website describes Voice as “a team of technologists, artists and curators using the transformative power of NFTs to make digital art collectable.” The company bought the domain name in June 2019 from enterprise analytics and software company MicroStrategy.

360.com

  • Cost: $17 million in 2015
  • Current monthly traffic: 23.9 million

360.com belongs to the Chinese Internet security company 360 Security Technology Inc, and currently receives 23.9million monthly visitors, which ranks it as the 154th biggest website in China. The domain name was bought from Vodafone in February 2015 for $17 million

NFTs.com

  • Cost: $15 million in 2022
  • Current monthly traffic: data not available

NFTs.com is one of the most recent sales in the top ten, after it was purchased in August 2022 for $15 million. The site currently contains very little information, but says it is “powered by DigitalArtists.com Marketplace”.

Sex.com

  • Cost: $13million in 2010
  • Current monthly traffic: 64 million

This domain name was sold in November 2010 from Escom to Clover Holdings after it won an auction. The provocative name receives more traffic than the rest of the top five sites combined, with 64 million visitors each month, and it was recently announced that the name…

Source…

Is It Time to Rethink the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

/in


Kentucky resident Deric Lostutter is fighting to regain the right to vote.

Lostutter is now a paralegal but previously was a member of hacktivist group Anonymous and served out a prison sentence after violating a federal anti-hacking law.

His particular state and the nature of his conviction are proving to be sticking points as he seeks re-enfranchisement: Kentucky indefinitely revokes voting permissions for residents with certain kinds of felonies on their records. That includes offenses that, like Lostutter’s, were tried in federal court; as such, he’d need a governor’s pardon to be re-enfranchised.


Lostutter lost voting rights after being convicted in 2017 of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and lying to the FBI about his actions, and he served two years. He and a co-collaborator had conducted a hack in an effort to put pressure and public attention on two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players’ rape of an unconscious 16-year-old, as well as on school employees believed to have enabled or hidden the assault.

“I went after a coverup of a rape case,” Lostutter told Government Technology. “Did I commit a crime? Yes: I accessed a website without permission — a football fan website, where I posted allegations and evidence of the coverup to protect the football team. Do I admit that was wrong? Yes. Did I serve my time? Yes. Was it violent? No.”

That lack of permission is where the CFAA comes in. The federal law criminalizes accessing information on an Internet-connected device either without “authorization” or by exceeding the authorization one already has.

The CFAA is a controversial law. While it appears intended to prevent malicious hacking, it’s also come under fire over the years for its vague wording that some say risks scooping up more innocuous individuals alongside genuinely dangerous actors.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) appeared to acknowledge this concern last May when it issued a policy revision clarifying the law’s scope. The DOJ explained that the CFAA should not, for example, be used to charge security researchers or people who exaggerate in their…

Source…

Prison officer who helped smuggle cocaine into convicted murderer’s cell facing jail time

/in


Prison officer, 31, who helped smuggle cocaine and a mobile phone into convicted murderer’s cell at maximum-security jail after ‘forming a close relationship’ is now facing time behind bars herself

  • Heather McKenzie was working at HMP Shotts when she teamed up with convicted murderer Zak Malavin to supply drugs to inmates
  • McKenzie will be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on February 23

By David Meikle and Ashlie Mcanally

Published: | Updated:

A prison officer is facing time behind bars after helping to smuggle cocaine into one of Scotland’s most notorious maximum-security jails.

Heather McKenzie was working at HMP Shotts – home to some of the country’s most hardened criminals – when she teamed up with convicted murderer Zak Malavin to supply drugs to inmates.

Prison officials and police started an investigation after noticing a significant rise in the quantities of drugs being found in the jail – and receiving a tip-off about possible staff corruption.

Intelligence suggested McKenzie, 31, was illegally bringing drugs and mobile phones into the prison.

Heather McKenzie (pictured) was working at HMP Shotts – home to some of the country’s most hardened criminals – when she teamed up with a convicted murderer

Heather McKenzie (pictured) was working at HMP Shotts – home to some of the country’s most hardened criminals – when she teamed up with a convicted murderer

Zak Malavin who is serving life for murdering a man in a park by attacking him with a sword, was found to have an iPhone, 1.45g of cocaine and a sleeping pill in his cell

Zak Malavin who is serving life for murdering a man in a park by attacking him with a sword, was found to have an iPhone, 1.45g of cocaine and a sleeping pill in his cell

Malavin, serving life for murdering a man in a park by attacking him with a sword, was found to have an iPhone, 1.45g of cocaine and a sleeping pill in his cell when officers searched it in May 2020.

A search the following month uncovered two knotted bags containing a further 5.7g of cocaine, while data on the iPhone revealed texts and calls to McKenzie.

Police later raided McKenzie’s home in Forth, Lanarkshire, and arrested her after finding £2,500 in cash, mobile phones, syringes and trenbolone – a powerful steroid – as well as traces of cocaine and 28g of another drug, benzocaine.

An iPhone found by police had a missed WhatsApp call from a contact named ‘Zak’….

Source…

ChatGPT Malware Shows It’s Time To Get ‘More Serious’ About Security

/in


Security News


Kyle Alspach


Security researchers this week posted findings showing that the tool can in fact be used to create highly evasive malware.

ARTICLE TITLE HERE

With security researchers showing that OpenAI’s ChatGPT can in fact be used to write malware code with relative ease, managed services providers should be paying close attention.

This week, researchers from security vendors including CyberArk and Deep Instinct posted technical explainers about using the ChatGPT writing automation tool to generate code for malware, including ransomware.

[Related: Google Cloud VP Trashes ChatGPT: Not Cool]

While concerns about the potential for ChatGPT to be used this way have circulated widely of late, CyberArk researchers Eran Shimony and Omer Tsarfati posted findings showing that the tool can in fact be used to create highly evasive malware, known as polymorphic malware.

Based on the findings, it’s clear that ChatGPT can “easily be used to create polymorphic malware,” the researchers wrote.

Deep Instinct threat intelligence researcher Bar Block, meanwhile, wrote that existing controls in ChatGPT do ensure that the tool won’t create malicious code for users that lack know-how about the execution of malware.

However, “it does have the potential to accelerate attacks for those who do [have such knowledge]”, Block wrote. “I believe ChatGPT will continue to develop measures to prevent [malware creation], but as shown, there will be ways to ask the questions to get the results you are looking for.”

The research so far is showing that concerns about the potential for malicious cyber actors to “weaponize” ChatGPT are not unfounded, according to Michael Oh, founder and president of Boston-based managed services provider Tech Superpowers.

“It just accelerates that cat-and-mouse game” between cyber attackers and defenders, Oh said.

As a result, any MSPs or MSSPs (managed security services…

Source…