In advance of the midterm elections, primaries were underway in many states across the country this week. Like clockwork, TikTok announced what it will do to combat the threat of misinformation campaigns, which could impact everything from voter turnout to faith in the validity of election results.
Other social media platforms are also doing their part to be stalwarts of truth, with Instagram and Facebook removing the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, shepherded by Robert Kennedy Jr., for violating “rules prohibiting misinformation about COVID-19.”
We live in a time when young people increasingly rely upon social media platforms for their news, yet, AP reported, “Social media users are sharing a truncated clip from Obama’s keynote address out of context to imply that the former president was revealing an agenda to spread discord in communities.” Though it can sometimes feel like the problem is too big to solve, The Organization for World Peace applauded the British government for its new legislation requiring proactive measures to “remove contravening content shared by foreign state actors.”
There are different types of information disorder, ranging from misinformation to disinformation and malinformation. What’s the difference? According to this Venn diagram, intent is the key distinction.
To learn more about what you can do to reduce the spread of information disorder, check out the RSA Conference 2022 Hugh Thompson Show with Katie Couric, Chris Krebs, and Rashad Robinson. You can also explore our Library for other educational content.
Now let’s take a look at what else made industry headlines this week.
Aug. 19: “Cybersecurity concerns represent the most serious risk facing organizations, beating inflation, talent acquisition/retention and rising production costs, according to a new PwC study,” Infosecurity Magazine reported.
Aug. 18: With the 2024 Republican National Convention scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County’s CIO expressed concerns over the potential of cyberattacks on government systems.
Aug. 18: The Hill reported, “Lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to strengthen the federal government’s cyber defenses in the health care sector amid a spike in cyberattacks, a push industry leaders see as a way to help protect a critical sector that stores sensitive information.”
Aug. 17: Estonia’s primary payment system, ESTO AS, was the victim of a cyberattack allegedly carried out by the Russian-backed Killnet group.
Aug. 17: “Apple on Wednesday released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms to remediate two zero-day vulnerabilities previously exploited by threat actors to compromise its devices,” The Hacker News reported.
Aug. 16: After a ransomware attack on South Staffordshire, a water-supply company in the UK, the Clop ransomware group accidentally demanded payment from another water-supply company that was never breached.
Aug. 16: “Florida Orthopaedic Institute reached a $4 million settlement with the 647,000 patients affected by a server hack and subsequent ransomware attack in 2020. The data theft incident was the fifth-largest healthcare data breach that year,” SC Media reported.
Aug. 16: The Office of Inspector General published a report finding, “CISA has addressed the basic information sharing requirements of the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 but has made limited progress improving the overall quality of threat information.”
Aug. 16: After a two-week trial, a federal jury convicted a former Twitter employee on several charges, including acting as a foreign agent after taking bribes from officials in Saudi Arabia in exchange for access to personally identifiable information of more than 6,000 users of the social media platform.
Aug. 15: A lag on security from hardware vendors reportedly ranked one of the top 5G security concerns.