Medical devices, such as such as pacemakers, insulin pumps and defibrillators, could become lethal in the hands of a hacker tampering with them remotely. A new study that shows medical devices—and patients—are vulnerable to cyber attacks is a wake-up call for manufacturers, according to a Silicon Valley software company that sponsored the study. “Device manufacturers must change their culture and look at security as an equal to patient safety,” says Chris Clark, principal security engineer of strategic initiatives for Mountain […]
As prices come down, virtual private networks (VPNs) are becoming a must-have tool for many small-l and medium-size business owners. The growing popularity is a reflection of the chaotic times in enterprise computing, marked by malware and ransomware targeting vulnerable systems and a decentralized work force of globetrotting employees juggling several gadgets at once. More SMB data is now stored in the cloud, too, often leaving company executives at the mercy of the servers they […]
You can’t change your physical traits very easily, so if a hacker steals your biometric data–look out. Scanning a fingerprint or even an eyeball to authenticate your identity is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Biometric identification has been in practical use for a while now, and the technology gets more sophisticated every day. It should come as no surprise that security and privacy concerns have arisen along the way. And now the legal ramifications are rapidly getting more complicated. […]
WannaCry was a wake-up call. Petya is a wake-up call. Last I checked, wake-up calls were meant to bring about change. After WannaCry, we saw a massive surge in patching around the globe, not to mention a 22-year-old “accidental hero” in the U.K. who helped halt the malicious software. It’s proof that beating the drum continuously to public and corporate institutions about serious cyber defense tactics doesn’t seem to do the trick, and once again […]
A friend of mine showed up last night at a place we sometimes meet. He looked like Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale after lobbing a game-ending home run to Aaron Judge of the Yankees. He was supposed to have been on a plane to Italy. I asked him what happened. “We were all set to head out,” he said. “First leg: Rome. But I just canceled our tickets, like, a second ago.” I asked why. “Airbnb […]
Fake news is the new computer virus. That’s the conclusion I came to when reading a remarkable new report from computer security firm Trend Micro. If you doubt the massive efforts of underground “hackers” to influence you—and the massive cash they can make doing so—flip through the pages of this report. A few years ago, it could have been written about the spam, computer virus or click fraud economies. Today, “news” has been weaponized, both for […]
Summer’s here and the time is right for getting hacked or worse, having the contents of your computer held hostage by ransomware. For a couple of carefree and extreme data-consuming months, kids everywhere will be doing whatever they want online even if you’ve tried to control them. In other words, be very afraid. Only you know if it is time to have “the talk” with your child about online security. But before you sheepishly clear […]
First Amendment concerns and consumer privacy law has people talking about a case recently settled in Massachusetts. It revolved around the practice of serving advertisements with geo-fencing technology. At issue: was it legal for anti-abortion groups to use this new marketing technique to directly communicate with young women on their way to get abortions? According to the settlement in Massachusetts, the answer, at least for the time being, is no. The ads in question used […]
While the writing has been on the wall for a long time, last Friday it was in the news wires when a new strain of ransomware called WannaCrypt raged like an out-of-control wildfire across Europe and Asia, ultimately impacting computers in 150 countries. For many affected by this hack, a few hundred dollars in ransom money is a pittance when compared to the cost of hiring someone to attempt the recovery of your files after […]
In case you missed it, a major cyberattack swept the globe Friday. Per pretty much every major news outlet here in the U.S., hackers locked computer systems worldwide, then threatened to destroy data if the victim did not pay to be let back in. In other words, they executed a large scale ransomware attack, targeting companies, government agencies, public institutions and ordinary citizens across continents. The attack comes just one week after Google Docs users […]
