Can you believe we’ll have only one more weekly news roundup before 2019 comes to an end? Time is flying by and as soon as we cheer in the New Year, RSA Conference 2020 will be upon us. Lots of exciting things are going on in cybersecurity, including efforts to draw people into the industry.
As I pull the headlines from the major events of the week, it occurs to me that as frequently as we hear about a ransomware attack, we are also learning about indictments, suggesting that organizations are building better relationships with law enforcement so that even if we can’t prevent every attack, we are getting better at response. The community’s willingness to share threat intelligence has moved that needle forward, and we would be remiss if we didn’t give a shout out to Brian Krebs, whom CISO Magazine recognized as the “Cybersecurity Person of the Year.”
Here’s a look at other exciting events that happened in cybersecurity this week.
Dec. 13: News that the FTC “may take antitrust action to prevent Facebook from integrating its disparate messaging apps,” might have been the cause of a 3% drop in Facebook’s stock, according to AP.
Dec. 13: Women transitioning from the military to civilian life have only a few days left to apply for the Veteran Assistance Program offered by Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS).
Dec. 12: High school girls across the US are invited to take part in a Girls Go CyberStart program, a gaming competition intended to draw young women into the cybersecurity industry.
Dec. 12: A family in Mississippi who invested in a Ring camera were alarmed when a hacker compromised the camera and started toying with their eight-year-old daughter.
Dec. 11: Cybersecurity is taking a front seat for legislators who have put forth a bill, the Securing Energy Infrastructure Act, to mitigate vulnerabilities in the nation’s electric grid.
Dec. 11: HelpNet Security reported that “A design flaw in the KeyWe smart lock (GKW-2000D), which is mostly used for remote-controlled entry to private residences, can be exploited by attackers to gain access to the dwellings.”
Dec. 11: An ongoing investigation among joint law enforcement agencies has resulted in Policia Nacional successfully infiltrating and breaking up a chat group involving minors that were exchanging emoji stickers of child sexual abuse, according to Europol.
Dec. 10: Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has issued a fine of €9.55 million ($10.6 million) to 1&1 Telecommunications for violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Dec. 10: Infosecurity magazine reported that as of the 2020-2021 school year, Arkansas high school students will be able to take cybersecurity courses.
Dec. 9: A $6 million settlement was proposed as a tentative resolution in the 2016 class action lawsuit filed against Banner Health after the data of 3.7 million patients was impacted in a data breach.
Dec. 9: Researchers believe that the Vietnamese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group OceanLotus were behind the BMW and Hyundai hacks earlier this month.
Dec. 9: A pair of Romanian threat actors alleged to be the operators of a cybercrime ring, Bayrob Group, have been convicted on 21 charges and sentenced to jailtime.
Dec. 7: Because there was suspicion that malicious actors were attempting to interfere with Britain’s elections, Reddit banned 61 accounts believed to be in violation of its policies against vote manipulation.