On January 1, 2026, broad new privacy laws will take effect in Kentucky, Indiana, and Rhode Island, granting consumers in those states greater control over their personal data. With these additions, 19 states now have comprehensive privacy laws in place, which is a significant shift in the data privacy landscape since California led the way in 2018 with the
Georgia
Privacy Tip #441 – Identity Theft Statistics Increasing in 2025
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
- 1.4 million complaints of identity theft were received by the Federal Trade Commission
- Total fraud and identity theft cases have nearly tripled over the last decade
- Cybercrime
Nineteen States Have Banned TikTok on Government-Issued Devices
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Cybersecurity, Data Security
Governors of numerous states have issued Executive Orders in the past several weeks banning TikTok from government-issued devices and many have already implemented a ban, with others considering similar measures. There is also bi-partisan support of a ban in the Senate, which unanimously approved a bill last week that would ban the app from devices…
State Bar of Georgia Reveals Security Incident to Employees and Members
By Linn Foster Freedman on
The State Bar of Georgia recently disclosed that it was the victim of a cybersecurity incident in April 2022, when an unauthorized individual accessed its systems and compromised the data of current and former employees and “some members of the State Bar.”
The incident included unauthorized disclosure of individuals’ names, addresses, dates of birth, Social…
U.S. Agricultural Machinery Manufacturer Hit with Ransomware Attack
By Kathryn Rattigan on
Posted in New + Now
This week, AGCO, a U.S. agricultural machinery manufacturer, suffered a ransomware attack that affected its business operations and shut down its systems.
AGCO, headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, designs, produces, and sells tractors, combines, foragers, hay tools, self-propelled sprayers, smart farming technologies, seeding and tillage equipment. AGCO first discovered this attack through its subsidiary, Massey-Ferguson, when…
Privacy Tip #320 – 2021 Goes Down as Top Year for Fraud
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
2021 will go down in our minds as many things, including the year in which more people reported fraud and the highest dollar amount of fraud losses in history. Not a great statistic.
According to the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2021 (the Data Book), the FTC received 5.7 million reports from…
School Nutrition Vendor Sued for Compromise of 867,209 K-12 Student Records
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in New + Now
PCS Revenue Control Systems, Inc. (PCS) was hit with a proposed class action lawsuit last week alleging that it discovered a data breach from a hacking attack in December 2019 but failed to notify the affected students until March of 2021.
According to the lawsuit, student information was collected by PCS’s predecessor, Advanced Business Technologies…
Vehicle Inspections in Multiple States Disrupted by Malware
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Cybersecurity
Applus Technologies, Inc., a vendor of multiple state Departments of Motor Vehicles that assists states with vehicle inspections, recently announced that its systems have been affected by malware, disrupting motor vehicle inspections in Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Utah. As a result of the outage, vehicle inspections have not been able…
Ransomware Attack Affects Georgia County Election Administration System
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Cybersecurity
Hall County, Georgia reported on October 7, 2020, that it was the victim of a ransomware attack that disrupted some of its systems, including email and telephone services in public buildings and the sheriff’s offices. Last week, the county indicated that in addition to telephone and email services, the ransomware attack also affected the county’s…
Privacy Tip #220 – Identity Theft Still in Top Three Frauds Reported to FTC
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
Three million fraud cases were reported to the FTC in 2018, and 444,602 of them involved identity theft. These reported cases (just think of how high the statistic would be if all cases were reported) amounts to the third most common type of fraud reported to the FTC.
According to The Motley Fool, of…