There’s lots of juicy details about the Equifax hack in a story published today by Bloomberg. It makes the strongest case yet that the massive heist of American SSNs was probably pulled off by a nation-state. That’s likely true about the huge theft of federal employee data back in 2015, [Keep reading]
A few Mac laptop users say they have recently been victims of a rather simple ransomware-style attack that disables their gadgets. The attack relies not on installation of ransomware, but rather turning a user’s “Find My iPhone” against them. Find My iPhone is an incredibly useful feature that has rescued [Keep reading]
Many people believe that Americans waste a bunch of money eating out — that avocado toast and lattes are budget wreckers, for example — and that’s sort of true. In 2014, an important line was crossed — for the first time since the government tracked this sort of thing, families [Keep reading]
Equifax CEO Richard Smith left his job Tuesday, becoming the second high-profile CEO in recent years to be ousted after a blockbuster hack. While Smith wasn’t immediately replaced — as his security executives were — he apparently could not survive the firm’s bumbling response in the hack’s aftermath. Word of [Keep reading]
I had the honor of appearing on This Week in Tech yesterday. The blow of not sharing the studio with tech legend and usual host Leo Laporte was eased by ABC’s Becky Worley, who was fantastic at drawing out the wisdom of guests Rob Reid and Robert Scoble . (Yes, this was the [Keep reading]
Each time America gets in a spitting match, there are many losers. There is one clear winner, however: Vladimir Putin. Forget election meddling for a moment. Putin’s propaganda machine is in overdrive right now, egging on Americans to keep fighting with each other. Just look at this dashboard which tracks [Keep reading]
Heidi Ann Muth was found face down in a pool of blood last week, left for dead on a dirt road in Jamaica after she was brutally stabbed in the head and back several times. The 68-year-old Californian had spent more than year 30 years teaching young kids how to love [Keep reading]
If you wanted a vehicle car tag or a license in Montgomery County, Ala., this week, you were out of luck. Hackers knocked many county computers offline with a ransomware attack, local officials say. The probate office took the worst of the attack, which hit late Monday, so business licenses, [Keep reading]
US consumers broke through quite a barrier earlier this year, when total credit card debt topped $1 trillion for the first time since the Great Recession. Then in June, total credit card debt reached $1.021 trillion, besting the previous record set back in April 2008, just as the Great Recession [Keep reading]
Many Americans are learning the words “security freeze” recently, courtesy of Equifax. Really, they should be thanking their state lawmakers and a tireless group of consumer advocates. More important, it should give people new appreciation for the disaster that is the legal maneuvering called “state pre-emption,” and why consumers should [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan