March 17, 2011 U.S. News and World Report, Wired Magazine and the NPR News Blog have featured research by Networking Group members and a team from UC San Diego on the profitability of spam. The researchers took over part of a spam botnet, a group of malware-infected computers instructed to send large amounts of spam, to find out how many spam messages were successfully delivered and how many led to a sale. Read more about the research here >>
May 16, 2011 The 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Award has been awarded to Vern Paxson, a senior researcher in the Networking Group. Paxson is recognized for his seminal contributions to Internet measurement and security, as well as for distinguished leadership and service to the Internet community. Past winners of the award include Scott Shenker, who leads the Networking Group, Sally Floyd, a senior researcher in the group, and Domenico Ferrari, a former deputy director of ICSI and Networking Group leader. More >>
May 20, 2011
In a study featured in the New York Times, ICSI, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego researchers found that just three banks authorize 95 percent of credit card sales of goods advertised through spam. The study measured the spam-based business cycle from the sending of unwanted email to the delivery of goods
May 30, 2011
Several ICSI researchers will participate in the recently announced Intel Science and Technology Center for Secure Computing at UC Berkeley. Networking Group leader Scott Shenker, Vern Paxson, who leads security efforts at ICSI, and external fellow Sylvia Ratnasamy will join researchers from across the US in exploring ways to guard personal computers from malware, secure mobile devices that use third-party applications, and protect personal data on the Internet. The center will receive $2.5 million per year in funding from Intel.
July 18, 2011
Networking Group researchers have found that the majority of the most active malware distributors pay third parties to install their malicious software on at least some of the computers they infect. The study, featured in the MIT Technology Review, describes how researchers infiltrated four "pay-per-install" providers and downloaded over a million instances of malware. They found that twelve of the 20 families of malware distributors seen most frequently use "pay-per-install" providers to infect machines.
July 25, 2011
Vern Paxson, a senior researcher in the Networking Group, has been invited to give the keynote talk at SIGCOMM 2011, to be held in August in Toronto. SIGCOMM, the annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communications, is considered the leading conference in networking. Paxson's talk is titled "Reflections on Measurement Research: Crooked Lines, Straight Lines, and Moneyshots."
August 1, 2011
Networking researchers have won the FCC Open Internet Research Challenge with their Netalyzr system, which tests whether a user's Internet service provider (ISP) is interfering with network traffic. The challenge, issued by the Federal Communications Commission, called for research papers on work to keep the Internet transparent, open, and under consumer control. Watch senior researcher Nicholas Weaver's presentation and acceptance speech on behalf of the team here >>
August 10, 2011
Some Internet service providers (ISPs) redirect Internet searches through third-party companies, according to Networking Group researchers. New Scientist, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's blog, Slashdot, and the Washington Post have featured the findings.
August 20, 2011
Networking Group researchers have found that the majority of the most active malware distributors pay third parties to install their malicious software on at least some of the computers they infect. Networking researchers Chris Grier, Christian Kreibich, and Vern Paxson, in collaboration with Juan Cabellero of IMDEA Software Institute, won an Outstanding Paper Award at the USENIX Security Symposium 2011 for the work, which was featured in the MIT Technology Review.
August 25, 2011
Networking Group researcher Barath Raghavan won the best paper award at the Workshop on Green Neworking at ACM SIGCOMM 2011, held August 19 in Toronto. His paper, written with UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Justin Ma, explores what might happen to the Internet in the event of an oil shortage resulting in a global energy crisis. Read the paper here >>
