Crypto AG scandal

The article in The Washington Post is really huge, but even a brief glance is enough to see how absolutely amazing this Crypto scandal is. A great example of chutzpah. "Crypto AG was a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security. It was jointly owned by the American CIA...

Facebook to Pay $550M to Settle Class Action Case Over Facial Recognition

Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to Illinois users to settle a class action lawsuit filed over the use of its face-tagging technology to collect facial-recognition data on its social media platform. The company unveiled the settlement on a quarterly financial call Wednesday, in which it...

Facebook Security Debacles: 2019 Year in Review

Facebook Security: 2019 Year in Review Facebook spent the past year both trying to deal with the consequences of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that rocked its public relations in 2018, as well as other issues afflicting the social media platform – from data security challenges to political...

The Story of Tiversa

The New Yorker has published the long and interesting story of the cybersecurity firm Tiversa. Watching "60 Minutes," Boback saw a remarkable new business angle. Here was a multibillion-dollar industry with a near-existential problem and no clear solution. He did not know it then, but, as he turn...

Pompeo Was Riding High—Until the Ukraine Mess Exploded

The US secretary of state may be a Trump favorite, but the Ukraine scandal appears to threaten Mike Pompeo’s ambitions for higher office...

Congress Grills Joseph Maguire Over Trump's Whistle-Blower Scandal

Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire answered Congress's questions about the Ukraine whistle-blower complaint—but not always to satisfaction...

Leaky Server Exposes 419M Phone Numbers of Facebook Users

Phone numbers linked to the Facebook accounts of hundreds of millions of users has been found online on an insecure server in the latest privacy gaffe for the social media giant. The server, which lacked password protection, contained more than 419 million records over several databases of Facebo...

Facebook Agrees to Pay $5 Billion Fine and Setup New Privacy Program for 20 Years

The Federal Trade Commission FTC today officially confirmed that Facebook has agreed to pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine over privacy violations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Besides the multibillion-dollar penalty, the company has also accepted a 20-year-long agreement that...

Privacy Experts: Facebook's $5B Fine Unlikely to Do Much

The $5 billion fine that the Federal Trade Commission has slapped on Facebook for privacy violations may be the largest ever levied by the agency, but it’s being derided as “chump change” and ineffective by lawmakers and privacy analysts. The settlement, reported Friday evening, stems from...

Heather Mills Gets An Apology and 'Substantial' Settlement in Spyware Case

The 2010-2011 News of the World phone hacking scandal – in which it was revealed that the tabloid dropped malware on celebrity targets’ phones in order to gather dirt for news stories – is still playing out in court. The latest is a settlement for a “substantial” sum paid to Heather Mills and her...

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...

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...

2018: A Banner Year for Breaches

Where to start? In 2018 the mantra became “another day, another data breach.” As a result, consumers and researchers alike are feeling “breach fatigue” and getting a bit numb to the headline. But the reality is, cybercriminals are going after personal information, credit card info and passwords...

Threatpost Poll: Do You Hate Facebook?

Facebook is under fire again after a bombshell report went live, claiming it has had broad data-sharing arrangements with Amazon, Apple, Netflix and others for years. We’re wondering if this changes how you use Facebook in your everyday life. An exhaustive investigation in the New York Times on...

Google Accelerates Google+ Shutdown After New Bug Discovered

The discovery of a new API bug in Google+ has led Google to hasten the shuttering of its consumer version of the social-networking platform, the tech giant said Monday. Google was already in the process of shutting down Google+ after a different API software bug in the platform, disclosed in...

Facebook Fined £500,000 for Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users. The fine has been imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ICO and was calculated using the UK's old...

Facebook Fined £500,000 for Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users. The fine has been imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ICO and was calculated using the UK's old...

Teacher linked to Celebgate hacking scandal facing 7 years in prison

By Uzair Amir Former Lee Davis High School, Virginia teacher Christopher Brannan set to plead guilty to the federal charges of hacking into the computers of Celebrities including Emma Watson and non-celebrities leading to their private data in the Celebgate hacking scandal. 31 years old Christoph...

Facebook Faces £500,000 Fine in U.K. Over Cambridge Analytica Leak

Facebook has been fined £500,000 $664,000 in the U.K. after the country's data protection watchdog concluded that its data-sharing scandal broke the law, making it as the social network's first fine over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Da...

Facebook Faces £500,000 Fine in U.K. Over Cambridge Analytica Leak

Facebook has been fined £500,000 $664,000 in the U.K. after the country's data protection watchdog concluded that its data-sharing scandal broke the law, making it as the social network's first fine over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Da...