Oversharing and safety in the age of social media

Many years ago, I worked with healthcare organizations to install infrastructure to support the modernization of their information systems. As I traversed hospitals – both in public and private sectors – I was often struck by one particular best practice: the privacy reminders were ubiquitous. If...

Amazon Employees Given 'Broad Access' to Personal Alexa Info

Employees at Amazon can access geolocation information for Alexa users, according to reports – thus uncovering their home addresses and even satellite pictures of their houses generated from a service such as Google Earth. Alexa is the built-in voice assistant shipped with devices like Amazon Ech...

Labs Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques report finds businesses hit with 235 percent more threats in Q1

The Malwarebytes Labs Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques Q1 2019 report found businesses at the butt end of a bad joke. In just one year, threats aimed at corporate targets have increased by 235 percent, with Trojans, such as Emotet, and ransomware in particular revving up in the first quarter...

Facebook Could Be Fined Up To $5 Billion Over Privacy Violations

Facebook expects to face a massive fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission FTC as the result of an investigation into its privacy policies—that's about one month's revenue for the social media giant. To be clear the amount of fine is not what the FTC has announced or hinted yet...

Facebook Could Be Fined Up To $5 Billion Over Privacy Violations

Facebook expects to face a massive fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission FTC as the result of an investigation into its privacy policies—that's about one month's revenue for the social media giant. To be clear the amount of fine is not what the FTC has announced or hinted yet...

ISC Releases BIND Security Updates

The Internet Systems Consortium ISC has released updates that address vulnerabilities in versions of ISC Berkeley Internet Name Domain BIND. A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause a denial-of-service condition. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA...

Facebook May Face $5 Billion FTC Fine for Data Misuse

UPDATE Facebook may be facing fines as high as $5 billion after a year-long Federal Trade Commission FTC investigation into its data-security practices. Though it wasn’t mentioned in its earnings call on Wednesday, the social-media giant in a release for its Q1 2019 earnings said that it was...

Maintaining Privacy in the Cloud [Podcast Discussion]

Not long ago I joined Brian Contos, CISO and VP of Product Innovation at Verodin, for one of his Verodin Cybersecurity Effectiveness Podcasts. It’s been about 10 years since I worked with Brian at Imperva when he was the Chief Security Strategist. Back then, he was the one traveling the world,...

Poll: Are You Creeped Out By Facial Recognition?

Several news incidents this week regarding facial recognition and biometrics have sparked discussions in the security space over privacy concerns and issues around consent. First, a JetBlue passenger made headlines in a now-viral Twitter exchange with the airline, about the facial-recognition...

Congress Asks Google 10 Questions On Its Location Tracking Database

U.S. Congress has sent an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking for more information about its Sensorvault database that's reportedly being used by law enforcement agencies to solve crime cases. Last week, we reported a story based upon NY Times findings that revealed how using a...

Consumers have few legal options for protecting privacy

There are no promises in the words, “We care about user privacy.” Yet, these words appear on privacy policy after privacy policy, serving as disingenuous banners to hide potentially invasive corporate practices, including clandestine data collection, sharing, and selling. This is no accident. It ...

Dutch NCSC Releases Updated TLS Guidelines

The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre NCSC has published an update to their Transport Layer Security TLS protocol guidelines, which aim to improve TLS configuration security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA encourages users and administrators to review the Dutch NCSC ...

Google Releases Security Update for Chrome

Google has released Chrome version 74.0.3729.108 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This version addresses multiple vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA encourages users and administrators to revi...

Is Privacy Really iPhone? Researchers Weigh in on Apple's Targeted Ad Tracking

Apple has a consistent track record of implementing privacy controls, which it has been touting via a series of saturating “Privacy? That’s iPhone” television ads. Yet, though it may be deservedly capitalizing on the increasing privacy-consciousness of consumers out there and the negative headlin...

Of hoodies and headphones: a spotlight on risks surrounding audio output devices

More than a decade ago, cardiologists from the Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston presented their findings at the American Heart Association AHA Scientific Sessions 2008 about MP3 headphones causing disruptions with heart devices—such as the pacemaker and the implantable cardioverter...

Three-Fourths of Consumers Don't Trust Facebook, Threatpost Poll Finds

As Facebook privacy-related incidents continue to pile up, a new Threatpost poll found that a whopping three-fourths of respondents no longer trust the social-media giant. The negative sentiment, reflected in a Thursday Threatpost poll of over 130 security professionals, comes as Facebook faces a...

Poll: Facebook Harvests Email Contacts for 1.5M Users – Is Enough, Enough?

Another day, another Facebook issue. Earlier on Thursday, news broke that Facebook confirmed that it has harvested the email contact lists for 1.5 million people, in an ongoing effort since May 2016. The social network said the situation was “unintentional” – and that somehow, it just happened. A...

Facebook Stored Millions of Instagram Users' Passwords in Plaintext

Facebook late last month revealed that the social media company mistakenly stored passwords for "hundreds of millions" of Facebook users in plaintext, including "tens of thousands" passwords of its Instagram users as well. Now it appears that the incident is far worse than first reported. Faceboo...

Facebook Stored Millions of Instagram Users' Passwords in Plaintext

Facebook late last month revealed that the social media company mistakenly stored passwords for "hundreds of millions" of Facebook users in plaintext, including "tens of thousands" passwords of its Instagram users as well. Now it appears that the incident is far worse than first reported. Faceboo...

Facebook Collected Contacts from 1.5 Million Email Accounts Without Users' Permission

Not a week goes without a new Facebook blunder. Remember the most recent revelation of Facebook being caught asking users new to the social network platform for their email account passwords to verify their identity? At the time, it was suspected that Facebook might be using access to users' emai...