Under what conditions do citizens trust in secure, digital identities and systems, such as the digital vaccination card and the electronic identity card? In this interview, we will be talking to the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner Prof. Ulrich Kelber on Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI) and digital business models according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gold standard. What are the opportunities for companies that offer privacy-compliant products and services?

Holidays at the beach or lake and eternalising shared family experiences via photos – that’s what many people wish for at the moment. But is it really safe to share pictures of children and young people via messenger services or social media platforms? Alexandra Koch-Skiba, Head of the eco Complaints Office, reveals what parents should look out for to ensure that their holiday photos do not lead to any unpleasant surprises.

Summa one of 24 new Gaia-X AISBL Board Members DE-CIX as a blueprint for other Internet Exchange operators Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX, the operator of the world’s leading Internet Exchange in Frankfurt am Main, was one of 24 people elected to the Gaia-X AISBL Board during the organisation’s first general assembly...

Secure digital identities are a key factor for further digitalisation in Europe, a stronger convergence of the Digital Single Market, and more efficient public administration. In this regard, Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, comments on the update of the eIDAS Regulation by the EU Commission.

Whether it’s vaccination certificates, ID cards, driving licences or school reports: Our everyday life is still too heavily reliant on physical documents, thus inhibiting digitalisation. This is the view expressed in interview by eco Board Member Prof. Norbert Pohlmann. But with Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), processes in public administration, business and society can be massively simplified and many processes can now be digitalised in a trustworthy manner.

An interview with Michel Arres, Vice President Secure Power DACH, from Schneider Electric about market developments and the sustainability potential of data centres. The new environment will be hybrid: There will be cloud data centres, regional data centres, but also edge data centres.

“IT security tests must be implemented as early as possible in software development,” says Sebastian Schäffer, Head of Sales Marketing at Alice&Bob.Company. In this interview, we talk to him about security tests, automation of IT security and the Shift Left in the development process.

The eco Association is highly critical of the fact that the German coalition is apparently ignoring all warnings about the consequences of source telecommunication surveillance and the use of so-called “State Trojans”, and calls for a hearing with digital experts in the Bundestag.

 DoH improves the privacy and security of users eco Discussion Paper on DoH explains complexities and provides recommendations Paper – first published in September 2020 – now available in Spanish Throughout the history of the Internet, traditional DNS traffic – for example, when a user types a website name...

Protecting users, data, devices, and privacy through legal frameworks, technological innovations, and security by design.

In the amendment of the German Telecommunications Act (TKG), the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) is calling for last-minute modifications, with these set to have far-reaching consequences for all Internet users. In eco’s view, such a regulation would lead to a further undermining of the trustworthiness and integrity of communication on the Internet.

Against the backdrop of the attacks against email servers that have recently been reported, eco – Association of the Internet Industry recommends that companies put their own emergency planning and patch management to the test. According to the eco IT Security Study 2021, published in English today, 88 percent of the companies surveyed by eco describe patch management as a very important topic in their security strategy.

With the call for unique and secure digital identities getting louder, Ekkehart Gerlach, Managing Director of the German ICT + Media Academy, predicts an increasing use of an ID card for the Internet, and reports on its many potential benefits.

“Politicians must pull the ripcord in order not to gamble away trust in digital communication,” says eco’s Vice-Chair Klaus Landefeld.

The current draft of the BND Act by the German Federal Chancellery is set to give the German Federal Intelligence Service permission to access inventory, traffic and content data without the knowledge of the operator in question. The eco Association warns of the consequences of such a regulation for general IT security and judges the draft as being unconstitutional.

The Association of the Internet Industry appeals to policy-makers to reset the timing for the deliberations on the German IT Security Act 2.0 and to await further developments at European level.

Plans of the EU States to expand digital surveillance in the wake of the recent terrorist attack in Vienna trigger concerns for eco – Association of the Internet Industry.

Smartphone apps are a key component for reining in the Corona pandemic: they can warn us when we are at risk and thus contain the spread of the disease. How can we increase the level of acceptance of these apps so that more people use them? This is a question investigated by Christine Utz at the Ruhr-University Bochum in the NRW Research College SecHuman

With large-scale Internet companies currently implementing DNS over HTTPS (DoH), Klaus Landefeld, Vice-Chair of the eco Association, explains the significance of the move, and why network operators and ISPs should be working on implementation themselves.

The DoH protocol, designed to improve user privacy and security, has both its upsides and downsides. A new eco Association paper sets out to clarify some of the complexities and provide recommendations for implementation and deployment.

The German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) today published the latest draft of its security catalogue. eco welcomes the fact that the BNetzA has not succumbed to political pressure and has focused on appropriate criteria for the security of telecommunications networks.

Overall, Germans have little confidence in data security on online platforms. Despite this, users still do not take enough responsibility for their own security measures. This was the finding of a representative survey conducted on behalf of eco – Association of the Internet Industry

From today forward, the AV-TEST Institute, in cooperation with the eco Association, will complement the extensive data spectrum of its AV-ATLAS Threat Intelligence with real-time monitoring data of IoT (Internet of Things) devices and services.

For the Association of the Internet Industry, the responsibilities and liability for IT security must be regulated in a balanced manner within the framework of the IT-SiG 2.0 and security gaps must be closed quickly: State back-doors and the targeted weakening of encryption are counterproductive for IT security and jeopardise confidence in the use of digital services.

On Friday, 8 May 2020 leading industry experts from different layers of the Internet infrastructure - including Access Providers, Internet Exchange Points, Content Delivery Networks, Data Centers, and Cloud Service Providers – will discuss how they are maintaining the Internet during COVID-19. John Graham-Cumming,...

Cyber criminals are on a roll at the moment, with many successful phishing attacks being launched via corona-related domains. These criminals are putting companies and health care facilities at risk. The eco Association and the eco member SoSafe offer organizations tips on how to protect themselves against such attacks.

How can openness and standardization strengthen digital self-determination? Holger Dyroff is a member of the Executive Board at the OSB (Open Source Business) Alliance – Bundesverband für Digitale Souveränität e. V. (Federal Association for Digital Sovereignty) and the CEO of ownCloud GmbH. In this interview he explains how we can move away from digital dependency.

Linda Strick from the Cloud Security Alliance offers guidance for CSPs and cloud customers to assess the security and privacy risks of a cloud service.  Read more on dotmagazine.

With the right measures, you can provide for secure home office workplaces where company & customer data also remain protected, Markus Selinger from AV-Test explains. Read more on dotmagazine.

In this issue, dotmagazine offers advice in facing the challenges of COVID-19, and insight into innovations in the cloud industry and cloud certification - as an orientation for making IT outsourcing decisions.