Incoming European data laws risk helping cyber criminals because it will be more difficult to detect where attacks are coming from, according to the body that oversees the domain name system that underpins the web.
Göran Marby, the chief executive of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said privacy laws that come into force in May could mean crucial databases of website ownership, used to identify and shut down attacks, could be closed or “fragmented”.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is expected to lead to restrictions around the roughly 2,500 “Whois” databases that list who owns which websites.
ICANN, which oversees the Whois system, is negotiating with...