“Breaking boundaries to ignite an eco world” will be the theme of LeEco’s Oct. 19 event in San Francisco to trumpet its official U.S. launch (see 1609300064), said a just-posted graphic on the company’s website. LeEco, the Chinese consumer electronics, content and e-commerce giant, has been quiet since announcing plans in late July to buy Vizio for $2 billion (see 1607260066), except for a few high-level hires. Those included Richard Ren, the former Huawei executive, as acting president of all "vertical businesses" in North America (see 1609260039). Despite its impending Vizio acquisition, LeEco promises the Oct. 19 event will feature “a lot more than just screens.”

The Cloud Security Alliance released guidelines to help IoT designers and developers understand security measures for IoT-related products and services, said a Friday CSA news release. CSA’s report cites 13 considerations and guidance for designing and developing “reasonably secure” IoT devices to mitigate common issues with IoT device development, it said. Topics include IoT device security challenges; security options available for IoT development platforms; a categorization of IoT device types and a threat review; recommendations for secure device design and development processes; and a checklist for security engineers and examples of IoT products mapped to relevant threats, it said.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released a redacted Electronic Frontier Foundation briefing that says national security letters (NSLs) and accompanying gag orders violate companies' free-speech rights, said privacy group EFF in a Friday news release. Representing two service providers before the court, the group said most proceedings have been sealed since the case began five years ago. NSLs are a type of administrative subpoena that seeks information relevant to a terrorism investigation or clandestine activity and usually comes with a gag order, preventing companies from notifying users of the demand or discussing the letters. Some companies like Open Whisper Systems have fought government gag orders successfully, EFF said. “Our clients want to join this conversation, using their own experiences as a basis to talk about what kind of government surveillance is appropriate and what reform is needed -- but NSL gags prevent them from doing so," said EFF staff attorney Andrew Crocker in the release. "We’re asking the court to strike down this unconstitutional statute so we can have the robust and inclusive debate that this issue deserves.”

AT&T signed a multiyear agreement with Amazon Web Services to integrate the companies’ networking and cloud capabilities, the telco ISP said in a news release Thursday. The partnership will ease customer migration to the AWS cloud, it said. The companies plan to collaborate on business cloud networking, IoT and cybersecurity threat management, it said.

CEO Göran Marby said he’s further restructuring ICANN’s leadership apparatus “to better support the community” in “an evolution, not a revolution.” All executives will now have a deputy, with Marby naming Global Domains Division President Akram Atallah as deputy CEO. Atallah “has tremendous experience and knowledge of ICANN,” in part because he was acting CEO between former CEO Fadi Chehadé’s departure in March and the start of Marby’s administration in May, Marby said in a Tuesday blog post. General Counsel John Jeffrey's portfolio will expand, adding oversight of a new complaints office. The new complaints officer “will receive, investigate and respond to complaints about the ICANN organization’s effectiveness, and will be responsible for all complaints systems and mechanisms across the ICANN organization,” Marby said. The officer will work closely with Ombudsman Herb Wayne. The complaints office “is an important role that will provide a focus point for the community if they have complaints about the ICANN organization,” Marby said: “It is an additional way to keep the organization and me accountable” to stakeholders but “in no way replaces or supersedes the important role of all ICANN’s formal accountability mechanisms.” ICANN’s Board Operations office will now be under Chief Operating Officer Susanna Bennett. She will lead an organizational review team that “will focus on the internal assessment and controls audit, and reporting of organization-wide performance, based on targets, to ensure best practices and alignment across the organization,” Marby said. He said he's also creating a new senior vice president-contract compliance and consumer safeguards role, which will replace the current chief contract compliance officer. Current CCCO Allen Grogan previously said he will retire in December. Diane Schroeder was promoted to senior vice president-global human resources, reporting directly to Marby, he wrote.

The Democratic and Republican vice presidential candidates argued during their debate Tuesday in favor of their visions of countering cyberattacks. “We have got to bring together the very best resources for this country to understand that cyber warfare is the new warfare of the asymmetrical enemies that we face in this country,” said Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the GOP vice presidential nominee. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the Democratic vice presidential nominee, said he believes private sector cybersecurity firms should participate in the “intelligence surge” that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton proposed to combat terrorism. “We've got some of the best intelligence and cyber employees in the world working right here in the United States for many of our private-sector companies,” Kaine said. Pence also referenced Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state, saying one of the best ways to improve the federal government’s cybersecurity would be to prevent future secretaries of state from similarly using private email accounts. Kaine countered that FBI Director James Comey found Clinton’s use of the email server wasn’t worthy of prosecution.

A majority of typical computer users experienced "security fatigue," that is they were tired of dealing with security, which could lead to increased risky behavior, said the National Institute of Standards and Technology in a Tuesday blog post on a new agency study. “If people can’t use security, they are not going to, and then we and our nation won’t be secure," said co-author Brian Stanton, a NIST cognitive scientist. The study is based on interviews with people of all ages, holding a variety of jobs and living in suburban, rural and urban areas about their online activity, including shopping and banking, computer security, security terminology, and security icons and tools. Researchers said most computer users "felt overwhelmed or bombarded" over computer security issues such as remembering dozens of passwords, leading to "feelings of resignation and loss of control." Some said they didn't know why they would be targeted in a cyberattack and added that security should be left to a third party such as their bank. To ease the fatigue, researchers, who plan further studies on the topic, said decisions should be made simple and consistent for users.

A Nevada-based electronics buyback company and its owner allegedly bilked consumers in a bait-and-switch scheme that promised high payouts for used smartphones, tablets and other devices, but delivered "far less," as little as 3 to 10 percent of the original quotes, the FTC said in a Tuesday news release. Commissioners voted 3-0 to issue the complaint against Laptop & Desktop Repair -- which also goes by cashforiphones.com and cashforlaptops.com, among other names -- and owner Vadim Olegovich Kruchinin. Georgia also charged the defendants. Last week, the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia issued an order to the defendants to stop the alleged practice and to freeze its assets. The complaint alleged thousands of consumers complained to the FTC and other consumer protection agencies. A phone number for Laptop & Desktop Repair found through the Better Business Bureau website played a recording of business hours, but didn't provide a way to leave a message for comment.

The volume of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks has remained consistently high, and such attacks are causing “real damage” to companies, Neustar said Tuesday in a report from surveying more than 1,000 cybersecurity professionals. It said DDoS attacks are frequently being used as a “smokescreen” for hackers to launch other malware against a company’s servers. Fifty-three percent of DDoS were accompanied by other malware, with 46 percent of such cases involving viruses, 15 percent involving ransomware and 37 percent involving other forms of malware. The risk of IoT-based DDoS attacks is increasing as more unsecured IoT-enabled devices go on the market. Eighty-two percent of professionals who have adopted IoT have experienced an attack, while 58 percent who haven’t adopted such technologies were attacked. “Organizations should be concerned that DDoS attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated and relentless, frequently serving as the first stage of a multi-stage attack against an organization’s infrastructure,” said Neustar Senior Technologist Rodney Joffe in a news release: “There is a silver lining: as public attention is driving urgency to improve DDoS protection capabilities, organizations are increasingly realizing that having a DDoS mitigation solution in place is a requirement” to prevent such attacks.

The U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas, released Judge George Hanks' full order denying a bid by four Republican state attorneys general for a temporary restraining order to delay the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition. Hanks ruled against the TRO request Friday and the transition executed just after midnight Saturday (see 1609300065 and 1610030042). Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led the underlying lawsuit against NTIA over the handoff, joined by Arizona AG Mark Brnovich, Nevada AG Adam Laxalt and Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt (see 1609290073). The attorneys general “have not produced evidence sufficient to carry their heavy burden” in proving the need for the TRO, Hanks said in his ruling (in Pacer), released Monday. “Instead, they provide only the statements and averments of counsel -- and hearsay from third parties -- to speculate about the future results of possible changes and events in a complex phenomenon, and the role and influence of NTIA over this phenomenon. This is not enough to carry their heavy burden here.” Even if Hanks' court “were to find that some past harm or bad acts by [ICANN] impacted the interests of the States in their respective websites and alleged rights at interest, the Court notes that these past harms happened under the exact regulatory and oversight scheme that the States now seek to preserve,” Hanks said: “This, along with the lack of evidence regarding any predictable or substantially likely events, greatly undermines” the case for a TRO. The AGs' offices said they're considering next steps.