The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “it is challenging the public to create an innovative tool that will help protect consumers from security vulnerabilities in the software of home devices connected to the Internet of Things.”  The FTC announcement on January 4, 2017 was entitled “Challenge to Combat Security Vulnerabilities…

Continue Reading Cyber challenge to secure IoT home devices

Computerworld reported that the “French law took effect Jan. 1 and requires firms with more than 50 employees to negotiate a “disconnection” rule governing after-hour and vacation communications.”  The January 6, 2017 report entitled “Why France’s new ‘right to disconnect’ law matters” included this comment that emails “arriving…

Continue Reading New email law which gives employees an after hour a ‘right to disconnect’ – good or bad idea?

The FBI announced that “John Edward Taylor allegedly trolled dating websites to find unsuspecting women for his ‘romance’ scam, designed to steal their money.”  The January 3, 2017 FBI news release entitled “Alleged Confidence Man Charged With Luring Victims Through Matchmaking And Networking Sites To Commit Fraud And Identity…

Continue Reading BIG SURPRISE! – Fraud and identity theft a real problem for online dating sites!

Privacy concerns regarding big data were highlighted by the Federal Trade Commission report entitled “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion? Understanding the Issues” in January 2016 and will grow in importance given the predicted growth of big data reported by Infoworld which included a report that…

Continue Reading Privacy Laws will likely cause conflicts with Big Data in 2017

Tenable Network Security surveyed “700 security practitioners across seven key industry verticals and nine countries” that produced “a single report card score that represents overall confidence levels of security practitioners that the world’s cyber defenses are meeting expectations.”  The “2017 Global Cybersecurity Assurance Report Card” from Tenable with…

Continue Reading Cybersecurity Report Card for 2016: Overall “C-“ but bad news since the Cloud gets a “D-“ and Mobile gets an “F”!

The New York Times reported the best and worse technology from “exploding smartphones and hoverboards to the proliferation of fake news on social media, many of our tech hardware, software and web products suffered embarrassing failures.”  The December 14, 2016 article entitled  “Biggest Tech Failures and Successes of 2016…

Continue Reading CYBER & TECHNOLOGY Ups and Downs in 2016 – Encryption a Big Success, but Fake News a Big Failure

Southwest’s website was down for about 3 hours so Southwest tweeted that “We are aware and investigating current issues with our website, and we have implemented flexible accommodations for those being affected.” The Dallas News report from December 21, 2016 entitled “Southwest Airlines suffers website outage; airport operations unaffected…

Continue Reading Another Cyberattack at Southwest Airlines?