The horrific death of journalist James Foley, amplified by his murderers’ ability to spread their act of terror via Internet video, touched off an immediate and familiar debate: Should governments and corporations ever restrict access to images of horror? Firms like Twitter made their choice immediately and did all they [Keep reading]
It’s been a bad few days for consumers’ data. One of the nation’s largest hospital operators, Community Health Systems Inc., said Monday that hackers from China stole personal information belonging to 4.5 million patients. While the data was pilfered between April and June of this year from Community Health System [Keep reading]
Buy food at a grocery store? You’ve probably been hacked. In the latest in a never-ending chain of credit card hacks, Albertson’s grocery stores announced Friday that its payment processor had been victim of a massive cybercrime. Impacted brands include Albertson’s, ACME Markets, Jewel-Osco, and Shaw’s and Star Markets. The hack [Keep reading]
As tensions escalate around the world, and the temperature of conflict rhetoric between Russia and the West continues to rise, security professional Richard Stiennon asked an important question recently: Will Russian hackers take the conflict into cyberspace? Russian officials this week have already announced tit-for-tat sanctions against U.S. meat, fish, [Keep reading]
A billion stolen passwords sounds like a lot, but it’s no cause for alarm. After all, you knew passwords weren’t keeping your money or information safe, right? Back in 2005…yes, nearly 10 years ago…the FFIEC (government banking regulators) said passwords were inadequate protection for financial institutions. What does the [Keep reading]
Russian hackers who hijacked 1,600 StubHub user accounts and stole $1 million worth of tickets were indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney Wednesday, a case that brings to light another frontier in fraud fighting — and another systematic weakness exposed by cyber criminals. The hackers’ scheme was ingenious. They impersonated [Keep reading]
It’s a question I think about a lot: Are we moving towards a world that’s safer or more dangerous? More or less secure? This week, the “less secure” side scored another goal. Light bulbs can be hacked. Doing so seems like a rather silly science fair project until you think [Keep reading]
The Electronic Information Privacy Center has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Facebook’s now-infamous research project, alleging the social media giant “purposefully messed with people’s minds.” The complaint raises interesting legal issues. Because Facebook was already operating under a consent decree with the FTC for a [Keep reading]
What does the nation’s leading privacy researcher, and a frequent but even-handed Facebook critic, think of the Facebook mood manipulation study controversy? It’s a case of “shooting the messenger,” he told me. It’s also a rare peek “through the looking-glass” at the future of privacy. Alessandro Acquisti’s name might be [Keep reading]
There was another round of confused Facebook outrage this weekend when a story in the Atlantic revealed the social media giant had intentionally toyed with users’ mood — allegedly for science, but in reality, for money. FB turned up the sadness dial on some users’ news feeds, and found out [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan