Data Security

The recent Game of Phones between the FBI and Apple underscored an area in our jurisprudence that is screaming for more clarity. If there is a tipping point when the protection of consumer privacy should yield to the needs of a criminal investigation, where is it? Few will dispute the obvious cases where the Constitutional rights of a citizen are...

No matter how good or lucky the investor, no one beats the market 100% of the time—unless, of course, you are Bobby Axelrod. There is, however, an investment portfolio that is somewhat more predictable. It works along similar lines, but it is possible to exercise significantly more control over it than equities. I’m talking about your identity portfolio. I’ve written...

Whether you love it, or it makes you want to move south of the border, Donald Trump’s Great Wall of Mexico is an idea whose time has come. That said, the Republican presidential candidate has a few things wrong. First, The Donald’s wall is misnamed. It should be called the Great Cyber Wall of America or the American Cyberdome or, at...

Visa has released data showing adoption of Visa chip cards by U.S. banks and merchants is gathering steam. But the capacity for Europay-Mastercard-Visa (EMV) chip cards to swiftly and drastically reduce payment card fraud in the United States is by no means assured. Just look north to Canada, where EMV cards have been in wide use since 2011. Criminals have simply...

Steve Jobs understood what people want. His insistence on making hard things easier — for instance, using a personal computer — was an essential part of the Apple success story. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been doing the same thing — but now the “hard thing” is privacy and encryption. Apple has consistently earned top marks for its privacy and...

There is no shortage of punditry about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s homebrew server, and the resulting fallout, aka “Emailgate.” Whether you read the commentary dedicated to killing her candidacy, or calmer voices focused on the bigger picture of national cybersecurity, Secretary Clinton gets failing marks — and rightly so. Unlike some of Secretary Clinton’s critics, I don’t believe...

In the 2016 presidential race, Cybersecurity has clearly taken a backseat to issues like terrorism, healthcare, and campaign finance. In a 12-month period that has seen the biggest government hack ever (the OPM data breach), a 47 percent increase in identity theft, and a proposed $19 billion security cybersecurity initiative, it's crucial to know where the candidates stand on...

Your Uber account is about 17 times more valuable to a hacker than your credit card credentials, according to a report security company Trend Micro compiled for CNBC. They found that stolen Uber credentials sell for an average of $3.78 per account on underground online marketplaces, while bundles of credit card data are sold for 22 cents, at most. Lots...

Here is the IRS’s phone number: 800-829-1040. With an anticipated $21 billion in tax refund fraud this year, you might need it. And that figure doesn’t include losses from dodges like the IRS phone scam, which has been enjoying a renaissance of late. IRS phone frauds aren’t terribly difficult to detect. You get a call from the IRS saying you...

Every year at about this time, technology reporters typically recount the big computer crimes from the past 12 months and proclaim “The Year of the Hacker” or some such moniker. This year, it fits. Two years ago, the Target hack ushered in a new era of credit card theft awareness and ultimately helped inspire a big change in the way Americans use plastic. But as we...