Ten Ways AI Will Change Democracy

Artificial intelligence will change so many aspects of society, largely in ways that we cannot conceive of yet. Democracy, and the systems of governance that surround it, will be no exception. In this short essay, I want to move beyond the "AI-generated disinformation" trope and speculate on some...

Meta whistleblower says company has long ignored how it sexually endangers children

At a Senate hearing, a Meta whistleblower has revealed some shocking numbers around children’s experiences of its platforms. Arturo Béjar, a former engineering director at Meta, testified before the US Congress on Tuesday. Not only did he share his own daughters’ experience suffering harassment o...

FDA medical IoT cyber device compliance. FD&C 524b

TL;DR FD&C 524b is new FDA legislation for medical cyber device compliance Introduced on March 30th 2023 it is now a firm requirement as of October 1st 2023 It demands provision of complex evidence that manufacturers take security seriously Medical cyber device market There are over 10,000 medica...

The hot topics from Europe’s largest trade fair for IT security

IT-SA Expo & Congress claims to be Europes largest trade fair for IT security. And it really covers a wide range of security and security-related products and services. The event takes place in Nuremberg, Germany and provides an opportunity for vendors to show themselves to the public, create new...

Information disclosure through insecure design

Introduction Insecure design can lead to many issues. The Software Development Life Cycle SDLC should contain steps to evaluate and consider security throughout the process. Several recent web application and API tests have revealed a common issue of responses containing too much data, and leakin...

Apple Threatens to Pull iMessage and FaceTime from U.K. Amid Surveillance Demands

Apple has warned that it would rather stop offering iMessage and FaceTime services in the U.K. than bowing down to government pressure in response to new proposals that seek to expand digital surveillance powers available to state intelligence agencies. The development, first reported by BBC News...

Commentary on the Implementation Plan for the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy

The Atlantic Council released a detailed commentary on the White Houses new "Implementation Plan for the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy." Lots of interesting bits. So far, at least three trends emerge: First, the plan contains a somewhat more concrete list of actions than its parent...

Proposed Massachusetts law to ban sale of your mobile location data

Cellular location phone data may be banned from sale in the state of Massachusetts, under a proposed law set to ruffle some data broker feathers. The selling of location data has long been a point of contention for privacy experts. As with so much bulk user data, claims of anonymity from the...

Legislation alone isn’t enough to stop spyware

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. The use of spyware continues to make headlines across the globe. While primarily used by authoritarian regimes to track potentially sensitive subjects like political opponents or activists, governments from all over the world are guil...

A US Bill Would Ban Kids Under 13 From Joining Social Media

The legislation would insert the government into online platforms’ age-verification efforts—a move that makes some US lawmakers queasy...

The TikTok Hearing Revealed That Congress Is the Problem

The interrogation of CEO Shou Zi Chew highlighted US lawmakers’ own failure to pass privacy legislation...

Threat Source newsletter (March 23, 2023) — Meta is threatening to ban news sharing in Canada. Good.

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. After asking ChatGPT to write the newsletter for me two weeks ago, I was tempted to have Googles Bard do the same, but I resisted making this the newsletters new gimmick. Instead, I wanted to write about another tech giant -- Meta. Th...

How AI Could Write Our Laws

Nearly 90% of the multibillion-dollar federal lobbying apparatus in the United States serves corporate interests. In some cases, the objective of that money is obvious. Google pours millions into lobbying on bills related to antitrust regulation. Big energy companies expect action whenever there ...

WhatsApp refuses to weaken encryption, would rather leave UK

WhatsApp will not comply with the UK's Online Safety Bill when it passes legislation as is. In fact, WhatsApp would rather cease serving UK users, which make up 2% of its global market, than weaken its end-to-end encryption E2EE. Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp at parent company Meta, made these...

Highlights from the New U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy

The Biden administration today issued its vision for beefing up the nations collective cybersecurity posture, including calls for legislation establishing liability for software products and services that are sold with little regard for security. The White Houses new national cybersecurity strate...

What Will It Take?

What will it take for policy makers to take cybersecurity seriously? Not minimal-change seriously. Not here-and-there seriously. But really seriously. What will it take for policy makers to take cybersecurity seriously enough to enact substantive legislative changes that would address the problem...

French law to report cyberincidents within 3 days to become effective soon

The pressure on victims of cybercrime to notify authorities in a timely manner is increasing from many sides and for multiple reasons. On January 24, 2023 France passed a law Article L12-10-1 of the Insurance Code that victims of cybercrime are required to report the incident within 72 hours afte...

Snapchat gives Californians more power over their personal data

There's a new toggle switch in Snapchat that, once enabled, limits the use of sensitive personal information. TechCrunch reports that the switch is a new privacy feature Snapchat will be rolling out to comply with the California Privacy Rights Act CPRA, also known as Proposition 24. The act, whic...

Hackers Leak Another Set of Medibank Customer Data on the Dark Web

Medibank on Thursday confirmed that the threat actors behind the devastating cyber attack have posted another dump of data stolen from its systems on the dark web after its refusal to pay a ransom. "We are in the process of analyzing the data, but the data released appears to be the data we...

Australia Passes Bill to Fine Companies up to $50 Million for Data Breaches

The Australian government has passed a bill that markedly increases the penalty for companies suffering from serious or repeated data breaches. To that end, the maximum fines have been bumped up from the current AU$2.22 million to AU$50 million, 30% of an entity's adjusted turnover in the relevan...