I keep repeating this to my Computer Security
students: Most breaches are due to a simple failure.
Equifax Was
Warned
Months before its catastrophic data breach, a
security researcher warned Equifax that it was vulnerable to the kind
of attack that later compromised the personal data of more than 145
million Americans, Motherboard has learned. Six months after the
researcher first notified the company about the vulnerability,
Equifax patched it—but only after the massive breach that made
headlines had already taken place, according to Equifax's own
timeline.
As an Auditor, these reports always catch my eye.
Investigation:
WannaCry cyber attack and the NHS
“The WannaCry cyber attack had potentially serious implications for the NHS and its ability to provide care to patients. It was a relatively unsophisticated attack and could have been prevented by the NHS following basic IT security best practice. There are more sophisticated cyber threats out there than WannaCry so the Department and the NHS need to get their act together to ensure the NHS is better protected against future attacks.”
Amyas
Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 27 October 2017
Gee,
It’s not always the Russians?
Technology
Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook,
Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential
Cycle
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Oct 26, 2017
Technology
Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook,
Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential
Cycle. Daniel Kreiss & SHANNON C. MCGREGOR. Journal of
Political Communication. Pages 1-23 | Published online: 26 Oct 2017.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814.
“This article offers the first analysis of the
role that technology companies, specifically Facebook, Twitter,
Microsoft, and Google, play in shaping the political communication of
electoral campaigns in the United States. We offer an empirical
analysis of the work technology firms do around electoral politics
through interviews with staffers at these firms and digital and
social media directors of 2016 U.S. presidential primary and general
election campaigns, in addition to field observations at the 2016
Democratic National Convention. We find that technology firms are
motivated to work in the political space for marketing, advertising
revenue, and relationship-building in the service of lobbying
efforts. To facilitate this, these firms have developed
organizational structures and staffing patterns that accord with the
partisan nature of American politics. Furthermore, Facebook,
Twitter, and Google go beyond promoting their services and
facilitating digital advertising buys, actively shaping campaign
communication through their close collaboration with political
staffers. We show how representatives at these firms serve as
quasi-digital consultants to campaigns, shaping digital strategy,
content, and execution. Given this, we argue that political
communication scholars need to consider social media firms as more
active agents in political processes than previously appreciated in
the literature.”
Perspective.
India
overtakes the US to become the world’s second largest smartphone
market
That’s according to a
new report from Canalys which claims smartphone shipments in
India crossed the 40 million mark for the first time in Q3 2017
courtesy of 23 percent annual growth. That means that India has
overtaken the U.S. on sales with only China ahead of it.
Perspective. Soon, everyone will work for Jeff
Bezos.
Amazon tops
540K employees after swallowing Whole Foods in $13.7B deal
I wish I could spell chutzpah.
Catalin Cimpanu reports:
Extortion can also be funny when it happens to the bad guys, and there’s one extortion attempt going on right now that will put a big smile on your face.
The victim is Basetools.ws, an underground hacking forum that allows users to trade stolen credit card information, profile data, and spamming tools. The site boasts to have over 150,000 users and over 20,000 tools listed in its forums.
Read more on BleepingComputer.
Perspective.
Reality
Check Multiplatform newspaper readership in the United States,
2007–2015
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Oct 26, 2017
Reality Check – Multiplatform newspaper
readership in the United States, 2007–2015. Hsiang Iris
Chyiirischyi & Ori Tenenboim. Journal of Journalism Practice,
Volume 11, 2017 – Issue 7. Pages 798-819 | Published online: 27 Jul
2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.108 /17512786.2016.1208056
Abstract – “Twenty years into US newspapers’
online ventures, many are stuck between a shrinking market for their
print product and an unsuccessful experiment with digital offerings.
Since readership is the foundation for subscription and advertising
revenue, this study, through a longitudinal analysis of readership
data (2007, 2011, and 2015) of 51 US newspapers, provides an
up-to-date review on these newspapers’ online and print readership.
Results indicated that the
(supposedly dying) print product still reaches far more readers than
the (supposedly promising) digital product in these newspapers’
home markets, and this holds true across all age groups.
In addition, these major newspapers’ online readership has shown
little or no growth since 2007, and more than a half of them have
seen a decline since 2011. The online edition contributes a
relatively small number of online-only users to the combined
readership in these newspapers’ home markets. These findings raise
questions about US newspapers’ technology-driven strategy and call
for a critical re-examination of unchecked assumptions about the
future of newspapers.”
Not quite the ten commandments, but obey them
anyway.
Useful for the stuff I grab with the Windows
Snipping tool!
Believe it or not, some people still print
documents on physical pieces of paper. Optical
Character Recognition (OCR) software takes those printed
documents and converts them right back into machine-readable text.
We’ve found some of the best
free OCR tools and compared them for you here.
No comments:
Post a Comment