Power, Responsibility, and Corruption: Facebook at a Crossroads

There has been some questioning, since the news broke, about whether this incident involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica technically qualifies as a data breach.  Whether it does or not, European legislators will be among the first to take a serious look into the matter. You’ve probably heard the story by now: how data analytics firm… Read More

New Frontiers Challenge Data Security

The image of a Tesla Roadster cruising around the backdrop of Planet Earth is one that will surely appear in future history books (or Kindles or Nooks or whatever students will eventually use).  A historic and slightly weird visual, it was a good look for Tesla, to be part of something so unprecedented. Not so… Read More

Simple Oversights Expose Military Vulnerabilities

Now this is interesting.  Military personnel overseas, by using fitness apps like FitBit, Jawbone and the like, have unwittingly exposed the location of several American bases around the world. Strava, a company that gathers data from these on these types of fitness gadgets, recently shared an online map (a “global heatmap”) based on 13 trillion… Read More

Your Data is Valuable. Your Rights Mean Nothing.

You know what one of most glaring issues is today?  No one looks out for the giants.  Poor institutions like Equifax and Wells Fargo, always getting stepped on by the little guy.  I applaud the Treasury Department for taking a courageous stand against the predatory consumer, always so avariciously eager for redress and restitution when… Read More

Is the Wi-Fi Sky Falling or Not?

It’s official.  Wi-Fi security has been cracked.  More specifically, its security protocol has been compromised by a bug known as KRACK (Key Reinstallation Attack).  Leveraging a weakness in the WPA2 protocol, which secures most wireless networks, KRACK can virtually create a skeleton key for a network using the protocol’s “four-way handshake” method of authentication for… Read More

The Never-ending story: Equifax

I don’t prefer to write about the same subject time after time, but in Equifax’s case, new wrinkles just keep popping up.  Seemingly every day brings another update in the news.  Yesterday, it came out that on top of everything else, the Equifax breach also exposed driver’s license data for around 11 million people.  Combined… Read More

Demands for data protection reform after Equifax

At the first of several hearings before a Congressional subcommittee, former Equifax CEO Richard Smith faced bipartisan reproach and questioning about the company’s massive data breach.  Coupled with the previous day’s revelation of another, initial data breach in March, and the tally of potentially affected consumers rising by 2.5 million, Equifax is certainly on the… Read More

Bridging the Data Breach Confidence Gap

Confidence is a beneficial trait to have, but an excess can get you into trouble.  As I’ve said before, companies who overestimate their cyber protection capabilities leave themselves open to a rude awakening when a security incident strikes.  Despite Gartner’s prediction of $90 billion spent on security this year, this false expectation continues to be… Read More

Hackers Beat Out Insiders

Here is a surprising stat.  While we’ve often talked about the prevalence of insider threats, and how they are usually the leading cause of data breaches, July was the first month that hacking actually took precedence.  Usually, this is reversed, but in both occurrence and severity, hacking won out this time.  According to the report… Read More

Blurring the Boundaries: DNA Hacking

Benchmarks in the perpetual blurring between science fiction and reality are constantly being reached.  Last week, another made news when researchers from the University of Washington announced they had successfully used actual DNA to hack into a computer system.  Although the potential for using DNA for data storage had been shown last year, in this… Read More