You’ve probably already heard about the massive data breach at Equifax, one of the three major US credit bureaus. The company says that up to 143 million people may be affected, which is almost half of the entire population of the United States. The stolen data may include names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses
(It’s been a while since I’ve written a full blog post. I’ve been putting most of my efforts into my weekly newsletter – be sure to subscribe to get weekly tips and news on cyber security and online privacy.) Headline Hyperbole This week, we saw the following headline from The Guardian: “WhatsApp vulnerability allows snooping
My second interview has posted on the George Orwell 2084 site – this one about the Internet of Things, or IoT. As they say, the “S” in “IOT” is for security. In this interview, we talk about the impact that these newly-connected “smart” devices are having on our lives, particularly with respect to our overall
Check out my radio/podcast interview with David Boron at George Orwell 2084. We talked about the Gooligan malware for Android, which has infected over 1 million Android phones so far and is making lots of money for the hackers. Look for another interview in the near future about the Internet of Things and how the
I’ve been a Yahoo Mail user for 19 years. My Yahoo user ID has only 4 characters in it. It’s been my public (read spam) email address since 1997. I’m sure it’s the longest actively-used email account I’ve ever had. But now it’s time for me to move on. You should, too. Here’s why, and
I happen to be a rather political person, but I try to keep my politics out of my work in the security and privacy arena because these issues must transcend politics. Our democracy in many ways depends on some basic level of computer security and personal privacy. In no place is this more obvious than
I’ve been focusing most of my efforts on my new weekly newsletter. But I wanted to make sure some of this info is making it out to my blog, as well. Here’s a little taste of my newsletter. To get this yummy goodness automatically every week, sign up here! This tip is one of
I’ve been waiting to comment on this because more information seems to be coming out every day. Also, there has been so much written about this already that I wasn’t sure what I would have to add. But I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this is a pivotal moment in our democracy, so
As the saying goes, if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product. The business model for most of the Internet revolves around advertising – which in and of itself is not a bad thing. It may be an annoying thing, but passive advertising isn’t actually harmful. Passive advertising is placing ads
LastPass is the password manager I recommend in my book and to anyone who asks. While there are a handful of good products like it, to me LastPass has a rock-solid security story and all the features anyone could want. You may have heard last week about a threat to LastPass called “LostPass” on the
