The New York Times reported that the US Supreme Court will consider a case against Microsoft to “decide whether federal prosecutors can force technology companies to turn over data stored outside the United States.” In 1986 Congress passed the Stored Communications Act (SCA) to control telephone records long before the
Did Facebook delete Russian bought ads because of a bug?
By Peter Vogel on
The Washington Post wrote that Facebook “it has merely corrected a “bug” that allowed [Jonathan] Albright, who is research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, to access information he never should have been able to find in the first place.” The October 12, 2017 article…
Continue Reading Did Facebook delete Russian bought ads because of a bug?
Google confesses that Russia bought Google Search and YouTube ads to influence the 2016 election!
By Peter Vogel on
The Washington Post reported that Google admitted that it “found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company’s DoubleClick ad network.”…
Do you trust Equifax? Apparently IRS believes a new $7.25 million contract with Equifax is a good idea!
By Peter Vogel on
Gizmodo reported that IRS supports its new $7.25 million contract with Equifax as a “no bid sole source” contract “to help verify US taxpayers’ identities” …and without which “would have prevented thousands of hurricane victims from obtaining much needed…. tax information.” The October 5, 2017 story entitled “IRS Chief…
Surprised? Equifax learned about its cyber exposure in March, but failed to do anything!
By Peter Vogel on
Rueters reported that former Equifax CEO Richard Smith (who retired suddenly last week) provided written testimony that “Equifax was alerted to the breach by the U.S. Homeland Security Department on March 9,…, but it was not patched.” The October 2, 2017 report entitled “Equifax failed to patch security vulnerability…
GUEST BLOG: Will cyber disasters finally be the reason that IT folks learn to speak English rather than Geek Talk (think Technology)?
By Peter Vogel on
My Guest Blogger Eddie Block (CISSP, CIPM, CIPP/G, CISA, CEH) is a senior attorney in Gardere’s Litigation Group and member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Legal Services Team who focuses on all aspects of information cyber security, including credentialing functions, firewall and IDS deployment and monitoring, and penetration testing, and…
Poor cyber security equals +1.9 billion records exposed in the first 6 months of 2017!
By Peter Vogel on
Gemalto issued a report that “identity theft breaches continues to remain high and result in many records being stolen shows that organizations are still not adequately addressing this threat.” The September 2017 report entitled “2017 Poor Internal Security Practices Take a Toll” included these comments:
A large portion…
GUEST BLOG: Are you surprised to hear that Equifax’s security chief doesn’t have a degree in technology, rather majored in music?
By Peter Vogel on
My Guest Blogger Eddie Block (CISSP, CIPM, CIPP/G, CISA, CEH) is a senior attorney in Gardere’s Litigation Group and member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Legal Services Team who focuses on all aspects of information cyber security, including credentialing functions, firewall and IDS deployment and monitoring, and penetration testing, and…
Oops! Malware distributed with antivirus software to more than 2.27 million users!
By Peter Vogel on
My good friend Kevin Campbell (SVP/CIO at Hunt Consolidated, Inc.) shared this bad news that “Antivirus firm Avast has admitted inadvertently distributing a trojanised version of CCleaner, a popular PC tune-up tool, for nearly a month, infecting an estimated 2.27 million users.” This news was reported by The Register on…
Continue Reading Oops! Malware distributed with antivirus software to more than 2.27 million users!
GUEST BLOG: Neither Rain, nor Sleet, nor Dark of Night Shall Stay the Application of HIPAA Regulations…
By Peter Vogel on
My Guest Blogger Eric Levy is a senior attorney in Gardere’s Trial Practice Group who focuses on HIPAA, PHI, cyber security, PCI compliance, PII, eCommerce, and related complex contract negotiations and litigation. Eric has received the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP-US) designation from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (“IAPP”).…