Small merchants who sued the credit card associations alleging a conspiracy connected to the conversion to chip credit and debit cards may proceed with their lawsuit, a judge has ruled. Billions of dollars could be at stake. California federal court Judge William Alsup ruled Sept. 30 that a set of [Keep reading]
With U.S. officials openly blaming Russia for hacker attacks on state election computer systems, and the myriad possibilities for election chaos such attacks raise, it’s important to put them in proper context. I went to Harri Hursti, a globally-known election security consultant, for some answers. Hursti cut his teeth in [Keep reading]
ARCHIVE — Jan. 5, 2007 — One moment Dave DeSmidt had $179,000 in his 401(k) retirement account, the next he had nothing. In an instant, 25 years of savings had disappeared. With a few clicks, someone raided DeSmidt’s retirement account with J.P. Morgan & Co and ordered a full disbursement [Keep reading]
You probably can’t help but follow the continually unfolding fake account scandal at Wells Fargo. When that story first broke, I wrote that the Wells way to do business – perverse incentives that encourage underpaid employees to cheat their fellow woman and man – is common. Well, today brought more [Keep reading]
Paying down debt is a lovely idea. Who can argue with financial advice to live a debt-free life? But it’s bad advice — and perhaps even cruel advice — to people who struggle just to pay the bills every month. And there’s a lot of you. Here’s the reality [Keep reading]
Anyone who’s read oddly positive online reviews or happened on Twitter users with suspiciously large followings knows that the Internet is full of fakes. Bogus followers or fake reviews aren’t just annoying — they call into question the very notion of crowdsourcing, one of the Internet’s most valuable tools. Researchers [Keep reading]
Yahoo says 500 million user accounts have been compromised, and they are telling users to change their passwords. That’s good advice, and below you’ll find better advice from security firm Sophos. But first: For the next several days, or even weeks, beware emails that appear to come from Yahoo. Now will be [Keep reading]
It’s not the big one, but it’s close. Yahoo confirmed on Wednesday long-suspected reports that a hacker had accessed millions of customer passwords. The number, however, is a bit shocking even to a reporter who’s been writing this same story for the past 10 years. Five Hundred Million. For many [Keep reading]
Elizabeth Warren rightly eviscerated Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf at today’s hearing on that bank’s wide-ranging scandal. She connected the dots neatly, showing that Stumpf made perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and stock while presiding over a crime involving two million fake consumer accounts. She then made the [Keep reading]
America is being ripped apart right now by one video after another showing unarmed African Americans killed by police. The videos often turn into Rorschach Tests, with viewers seeing what they want to see; taken as a package, however, the depth of the problem is both obvious and undeniable. Thank goodness we [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan