No industry is impervious to cyber threats, which is why it is little surprise to see Canada’s Conservative party leader, Andrew Scheer, making promises to create regulatory standards to secure digital products. But it’s not only politicians who are looking to advance legislation. This week, more than 50 tech CEOs sent an open letter to Congress requesting federal data privacy legislation.
Cyber safety and consumer privacy protection will be the topic of much conversation over the next several weeks with the 15th annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month happening in October. As awareness grows, however, so do expectations that CISOs have some magic elixir that can prevent all cyber-attacks.
From the Boy Scouts to Wikipedia, organizations large and small are being targeted by opportunistic attackers despite efforts to strengthen defenses. Here’s a look at what made headlines this week.
Sep. 13: Many have long believed that Apple products are more secure, but that assumption is indeed a misconception. In fact, a new report from Kaspersky Lab found that the Apple brand was used in 1.6 million phishing attacks during the first six months of 2019, TechRepublic reported.
Sep. 12: A new bill passed by the California Senate bans law enforcement’s use of body cams that use facial recognition technology.
Sep. 12: After suffering a major DDoS attack that forced Wikipedia offline, the Wikipedia Foundation received a $2.5 million donation to boost its cybersecurity strategy from Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.
Sep. 11: According to Harvard Business Review, “tech-focused companies have begun entering into cybersecurity alliances and pacts with one another. These alliances are a symptom of the breakdown of trust between policy makers and those they’re making polices for.”
Sep. 11: Nearly 200 million records containing loan and financial data of potential car buyers was exposed in an Elasticsearch database of a website car-buying research company, Dealer Leads.
Sep. 10: Despite advancements in technology – and sometimes because of it – consumers are at risk of falling victim to social engineering and phishing attacks. With the launch of Apple’s iPhone 11, Adrien Gendre, chief solution architect at Vade Secure said he expects to see a spike in Apple-related phishing attempts, with attackers using the new iPhone as a lure.
Sep. 10: For the second time in only four months, a ransomware attack hit the Wolcott School District in Connecticut, leaving the district’s teachers working without computers.
Sep. 9: Multiple news outlets reported the discovery of two dozen malicious Android apps in the Google Play store containing Joker malware. The apps were installed more than 472,000 times.
Sep. 9: Given that the healthcare sector continues to be an attractive target for malicious actors, the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council released, “an inventory of national information sharing organizations and key services related to cybersecurity for the healthcare sector.”
Sep. 8: Though Democrats continue to push for election security legislation, they are still meeting opposition from the GOP-controlled Senate.
Sep. 8: A third-party fundraising organization, Trails End, alerted the Boy Scouts of America that the company had experienced a “data incident” in which the personal information of some scouts, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers and parent names, was visible to unauthorized users through a search function.