Internet Infrastructure Review (IIR) Vol.55
August 2022

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• Executive Summary[0.46MB]
• Periodic Observation Report "Email Security in the Modern Age—Password-protected ZIPs and DMARC Sender Authentication"[1.02MB]

  We reported on trends in spam and virus numbers in the periodic observation report in IIR Vol. 51 last June (​https://www.iij.ad.jp/en/dev/iir/051.html ). Two points to note in that context are that, at the time, we had received up to 200 times the amount of spam received in the previous year, and that the virus Emotet was encrypting itself in ZIP files to avoid virus scans and thus running rampant. In this issue, we look at two security enhancements IIJ has undertaken to protect itself from such threats. One is to eliminate the use of encrypted ZIP files, and the other is to tighten up DMARC. We would like to see all readers do the same and hope this article will be helpful in that regard.

• Focused Research(1) "Creating a mac_apt Plugin (Part 2)"[4.48MB]

  In IIR Vol.54, we took a look at the demo plugin provided by the mac_apt forensic analysis framework for macOS to understand the basic structure of mac_apt plugins. In this installment, I discuss the data stored in “~/Library/Caches/<Application Bundle ID>/Cache.db” and go over the implementation of a mac_apt plugin for analyzing this artifact. If you haven’t read the article in IIR Vol.54 yet, you may find it easier to follow along if you go back and read that first.

• Focused Research(2) "Challenges and Solutions in Storage on Service Infrastructure"[0.7MB]

  IIJ has used storage array systems in its service infrastructure since the 2000 launch of its resource-on-demand service IBPS, the predecessor to the IIJ GIO cloud service. Both IIJ GIO and NHN (Next Host Network), a cloud system for IIJ’s own services, currently use storage array systems in their infrastructure, and the capacity of those storage systems is constantly being increased. Here, we start by describing storage in general to give the reader a deeper understanding of what it actually is. We then discuss what sort of storage and storage networks IIJ employs as it strives to provide services that customers can rely on.