In 2017, four new participants joined the Netoscope project: SURFnet, iThreatCyber Group Inc., SkyDNS and the MasterCard Members’ Association. It is interesting that two of them are foreign companies, meaning Netoscope has reached a new international level.
The SURFnet research center (The Netherlands) specializes in the domain industry and the analysis of the reputation of domain zones. The company is a recognized leader in this area: for instance, it has been measuring the health of domain zones as part of a contract with ICANN for several years.
The US company iThreatCyber Group Inc. has been engaged in analyzing stability and safety of the DNS since 1997. CEO Jeffrey Bedser is a permanent member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee at ICANN.
“We have long said that our Netoscope project uses data from expert organizations from abroad. We are happy that due to the new members the data we collect will be even more comprehensive,” said Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrei Vorobyev.
Two Russian companies also signed an agreement with the Coordination Center: SkyDNS, a major DNS provider specializing among other things on providing Internet security and content filtering services, and the MasterCard Members’ Association. The main cooperation area will be countering credit card and payment system fraud, including phishing. The association members also have many interesting ideas they shared at the recent Netoscope meeting which they took part in as guests.
“The number of Netoscope members grows every year due to increased attention to cybersecurity in general and domain zones in particular. It is a global trend, and the similar ICANN project is evidence of that. We are open to cooperation and expect new members in 2018,” Vorobyev said.
The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ established a research platform to aggregate information about malware resources in national TLDs in 2012. A year later, the Netoscope information and analytical publication came out with the most recent data about the distribution of cyber threats on the net and ways to counter them. As of now, 13 companies are taking part in the project: BIZon, Group-IB, Kaspersky Lab, Mail.ru, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, Rostlecom, RU-CERT, Technical Center of Internet, Yandex, SURFnet, iThreatCyber Group Inc., SkyDNS and the MasterCard Members’ Association.
