Utilities can be a pricey monthly expense for many households and businesses, with the average cost for households in America coming in at over $420 every month. Getting on top of utility usage, especially electricity—which typically constitutes the largest part of that monthly expense—can help save money, but it can also help conserve resources and...

Not everyone is a fan of it, but it's hard to argue convincingly that facial recognition isn't going to play a role in the future of technology. The newest Apple iPhones and Android smartphones have built-in facial recognition features that can unlock your device, but you would be wrong to think that the reliability and accuracy of the features is...

Digging through my cupboards recently, I came across my old collection of 3½ floppy disks. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a need to plug in my trusty USB floppy drive, so upon making this great archaeology discovery, I was left simply to ponder about their content and whether I’d really intended to break the write protect notch to prevent...

On Thursday 6th December, 2018, I realized how dependent I was on my mobile phone having an internet connection. That particular day, I was out and about away from Wi-Fi networks. The first time I noticed I had no connectivity was when I used my phone to check if my train was on time. As I got close to London, I realized I was not the only person who...

When carried out sensibly and securely, communication through social networks and other online public forums can be beneficial, both socially and professionally. However, if you’re not careful, it can lead to numerous undesirable consequences, one of which is cyberstalking. Cyberstalking is stalking or harassment carried out over the internet. It...

With three new sections added to the California Civil Code, California became the first U.S. state with a cybersecurity law specifically for internet-connected devices on September 28, 2018. The new Security of Connected Devices law will take effect on January 1, 2020. The Basics The new law requires manufacturers of connected devices to equip the...

Recently, the nonpartisan think tank New America published a report called “The Digital Deciders: How a group of often overlooked countries could hold the keys to the future of the global internet." The purpose of this report – authored by Robert Morgus, Jocelyn Woolbright and Justin Sherman – is to survey how nations around the world approach...

Authorities in the United States have charged two people in connection with a series of notorious ransomware attacks. According to the Department of Justice, 34-year-old Faramarz Shahi Savandi and 27-year-old Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri were the masterminds behind attacks against more than 200 networks since 2015. Unlike normal ransomware attacks ...

Whoever said “crime doesn’t pay” hasn’t been following the growth of cybercrime across the globe. A thriving underground economy has evolved over the past decade to become a massive industry. Estimates in the Web of Profit research paper show cybercriminal revenues worldwide of at least $1.5 trillion – equal to the GDP of Russia. If cybercrime was a...

Regulations like the GDPR are changing both how we do business and how customers engage with their data. Healthcare is no exception to that rule. Even in light of strict frameworks like HIPAA, health organizations face a number of unique challenges where privacy laws are concerned. Here’s why – and how you can overcome them. The European Union’s...

Amazon’s new security issue, which came to light just days before one of its biggest sale events of the year, is making recent headlines. And whilst it probably won’t stop the online retail giant from achieving a profitable Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, it certainly will make many users stop and think. Though it’s still early in the...

A German social media provider received an order to pay a €20,000 fine for a data breach that occurred in the summer of 2018. Knuddels.de (Source: Spiegel Online) On 22 November, the regional data protection watchdog LfDI Baden-Württemberg announced that it had imposed the fine on a local "social...

A data breach at Bankers Life might have compromised the personally identifiable information of over half a million people. On 25 October 2018, Fortune 1000 company CNO Financial Group, Inc. submitted a report to the Office for Civil Rights' Breach Portal at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report revealed an instance of...

HSBC Bank sent a letter to an undisclosed number of customers informing them of a data breach that might have exposed their personal information. The California Attorney General's Office recently received a template of a letter that HSBC Bank sent out to customers on 2 November. In the notice, the...

Thanks to a new notification service launched by the United States government in 2018, the President now has the power to issue alerts to every citizen with a working cell phone. The technology for this service, known as the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, has been around for a number of years and has been implemented for events like Amber...

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued a fine of £500,000 to Facebook for the the data scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. On 25 October, the ICO confirmed it had issued the fine after notifying Facebook of its intention back in July. The United Kingdom's independent authority...

Online shopping has become so popular that it has contributed to the fall of once giant businesses like Sears. But beneath the convenience of ordering goods at home is a mammoth cybersecurity problem that affects millions of users every year. You may think shopping on sites like Amazon and eBay is completely safe – but it’s not. Hackers can get your...

On September 20, 2018, the White House released a new cybersecurity strategy with several important changes in direction meant to give government agencies and law enforcement partners a greater ability to respond to cybercrime and nation-state attacks. The new U.S. cyber strategy makes one message clear: America will not sit back and watch when...

Another National Cyber Security Awareness Month is upon us, and although I have recently wished for its demise through better automated protections, there are some things that cannot be automated. One such area of manual interaction is all the social networks that we use. Unless you are a celebrity with a public relations team behind your every post...

In a recent article about U.S federal policy concerning IoT security, Justin Sherman identified several gaps in both cybersecurity and privacy policies. As Sherman has highlighted: The United States federal government, like the rest of the world, is increasingly using IoT devices to improve or enhance its existing processes or to develop new...