Leveraging Knowledge to Manage Your Data Risks
When GDPR became effective three years ago, companies took notice of the fines and penalties attached to violations of the stringent privacy law—4 percent of global annual sales. The fines have been racking up, including the most recent one by the Irish Data Protection Commission against WhatsApp—$266 million. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.
The fine…
Although a security researcher has confirmed that LinkedIn users’ data, including full names, gender, email addresses, telephone numbers, and industry information is for sale on RaidForums by a hacker self-dubbed “GOD User TomLiner,” LinkedIn has stated that it is not from a data breach of its networks. According to LinkedIn, “[O]ur initial analysis indicates that…
Facebook announced late last week that it had suffered the largest breach in its history with 50 million accounts were compromised, and another 40 million accounts affected. Yes, that equals 90 million accounts. If you use Facebook and were locked out of your account over the weekend, your account was most likely affected. The 50…
Many readers questioned me about the Wall Street Journal article this week entitled, “Facebook to Banks: Give Us Your Data, We’ll Give you Our Users.”
The questions and comments ranged from “Can they really do this?” to “This is outrageous!”
Without getting into a legal analysis, there are laws that banks have to follow when…
December is traditionally a busy month for charitable giving, as many donors are inspired by the holiday season to give generously to those in need, while others look to make year-end gifts that will qualify for a tax deduction in the current tax year.
Unfortunately, because of the increase in charitable giving, there is often an increase in charity scams during the holiday season. Donors should be wary of communications from unfamiliar organizations, including emails, texts, and phone calls, and should not provide personal or financial information without verifying the legitimacy of the request. Scammers often use popular charitable causes to solicit contributions, for example, by claiming that contributions will be used to help veterans, children, or cancer patients. The New York Attorney General recently announced the forced dissolution of one such organization, VietNow National Headquarters, which falsely claimed that contributions would be used to provide services and medical treatment to veterans.…
Continue Reading Protect Yourself From Year-End Charitable Giving Scams
Vevo announced this week that it experienced an intrusion into its servers by the hacking collective OurMine, self-described as a white hat organization that informs individuals and organizations of potential security vulnerabilities.
When OurMine reached out to Vevo to inform it of a vulnerability, a Vevo employee dismissed the claim and told OurMine that they…
Today, the Spanish data protection agency (AEPD) fined Facebook 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million USD) in connection with how the company collects personal data for advertising purposes. The AEPD said Facebook did not get properly informed consent from users before exploiting this data as well as kept this data longer than it’s useful purpose.
In…
Facebook says that someday ‘the password’ will be a distant memory. But for now, passwords are certainly necessary. However, Facebook has released a beta version of its Delegated Account Recovery software –a new way for social networks to be the backup security key when online consumers forget their password on different, non-Facebook websites and services. The concept behind this software: When a consumer forgets their password on a website, mobile app or other online service, the website, mobile app or service will instead use Facebook to verify the individual consumer instead of prompting the individual to re-set a password and answer security questions that are often not completely secure methods of password transmission. Delegated Account Recovery will require that the individual consumer prove that they are who they say they are by recognizing friends’ photos in order to log into their account on other websites, mobile apps or online services. Facebook security engineer, Brad Hill, said, “We want to make sure we can let you use identifying information to keep yourself secure, but not have to trade your privacy. Right now, you tell your mother’s maiden name to 500 different places and if anyone of them gets hacked, then you’re vulnerable everywhere.”…
Continue Reading Facebook’s New Software Suggests Passwords May One Day be Obsolete
In the ongoing saga of Facebook’s challenge of the Illinois Biometric Law, it declared last week that the Illinois law violates the United States Constitution.
According to Facebook’s Answer in a suit filed against it in California, the law is unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause, which limits states from enacting legislation that would…
I am watching Game 7 of the World Series, and it is the bottom of the 8th and the score is 6-6. It is very difficult to concentrate on this blog post.
So I am taking the easy way out and reminding you to check the privacy settings on your LinkedIn account.
What is…
