Smells Like Teen Cybercrime
It’s been a staple trope of fiction for a while now, the shadowy, mysterious hacker who eludes all of law enforcement’s effort, until at last they’re revealed to be some teenager. Usually this is an isolated event, but over here in reality, it’s now becoming a more common trend. Leaders in the cybersecurity field point… Read More
Human Toll of Data Breaches
Social engineering has become such a prominent factor in data breaches – around two-thirds of them according to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report – that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has made it the focus of their October 2024 newsletter. Between phishing, smishing and new AI-powered methods like deepfake impersonation of authorized… Read More
Gmail Phishing Scam Fools Experts
Cyber criminals continue to eagerly exploit new AI capabilities to try robbing you of your data. Ever increasing their sophistication, the latest major news is a highly convincing Gmail AI scam that nearly fools even security experts. Phone numbers and emails that look authentic and seem to legitimately come from Google, as well as a… Read More
Spear Phishing and Comcast’s Data Breach
In the same week that Microsoft disrupted Russian spear phishing operations, telecom giant Comcast has had to notify around 238,000 current and former customers that ransomware has compromised their personal data at the debt agency Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS). How many steps forward versus back is that, I wonder? Starting with the former,… Read More
Streaming Security and Dark Web Markets
As if the burden of managing numerous streaming services, their rising costs, incessant ads and other consumer-unfriendly practices weren’t enough, people also have to consider cybersecurity threats interrupting their casual entertainment time. Most recently comes news about a new malware strain that has infected over a million TV streaming boxes using the Android Open Source… Read More
Data Breaches Beyond the National Public
A number of data breaches have made the news these last couple of weeks, managing to creep their way around the edges of the predominant National Public Data breach. Japanese automaker Toyota has admitted to a breach of its systems, to the tune of 240 GB of data. Customer and staff information, financial documents and… Read More
Monitoring the Gargantuan NPD Breach
“Local Florida man exposes…millions of Social Security numbers?” Ok, that’s not usually how those headlines go, and in this case it’s a Florida based firm, rather than an individual. National Public Data (NPD), a data broker owned by Jerico Pictures, Inc., provides information for background checks. This past April, a hacking group stole the records… Read More
Data Security Failures: The Cost to Industry
Despite a marginal decrease in data breach expenses, the healthcare industry still foots a bill when an incident occurs: an average of $9.8 million per breach. This is a mere $1 million lower than the previous year, and does not dethrone the healthcare industry from its top spot in the rankings. In comparison, the financial… Read More
Consolidation and Integration of Big Tech
Not one day after my last post, snarking about AI, movies like Terminator and their unlearned lessons, and one of the most Skynet-esque global computer failures occurs. Weird how that happens. The global Microsoft Windows outage that has been on everyone’s minds this past week is such a glaring example. Now, obviously the CrowdStrike software… Read More
How Seriously Do We Take AI Data Security Risks?
I swear, sometimes it’s like nobody watched the Terminator or Matrix movies. News has come out that a hacker accessed proprietary information from OpenAI on the development of their products. No loss of customer or partner data, or access to main repository systems has been reported. And while OpenAI has claimed this incident doesn’t represent… Read More