Monday, March 05, 2018

No Colorado locations. Looks like the RMH system, used at the cash register(?) was hacked but not another system used at tables and online.
David Bisson reports:
It’s confirmed that some locations of the Applebee’s restaurant chain suffered a point-of-sale (POS) breach involving customers’ payment card data.
On 2 March, RMH Franchise Holdings (RMH) issued a notice of data incident on its website.
The statement explains how RMH, a franchisee of Applebee’s which operates more than 150 restaurant locations, discovered that something was amiss on 13 February.
Read more on TripWire.
[From the article:
The breach didn’t affect customers who paid online or used tabletop self-pay terminals during that period, RMH revealed.
[From the RMH notice:
RMH operates its point-of-sale systems isolated from the broader Applebee’s network, and this notice applies only to RMH-owned Applebee’s restaurants.




An attack on Privacy?
Signal and Telegram are down for many users [Update: they’re coming back]
for the time being: it appears popular encrypted messenger Signal is currently down globally, according to numerous reports from users.
The company behind the private messaging platform, Open Whisper Systems, has yet to inform its users what is causing the server downtime. At the time of writing, the Twitter accounts of both Open Whisper Systems and Signal remain silent.




This could be a serious problem for Facebook.
Facebook Doesn't Know How Many People Followed Russians on Instagram
For more than a year, Jonathan Albright has served as something of a one-man General Accounting Office for the tech industry. The researcher at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism has dug into the details on how political Twitter trolls manipulate the media, and unearthed an intricate web of conspiracy theory videos on YouTube.
Last weekend, while digging through Facebook’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee from last fall, something else caught his eye. In written responses provided to the committee, Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch told senator Dianne Feinstein that 1.8 million people had followed at least one Facebook page associated with the Russian propaganda group Internet Research Agency—but the answer made no mention of how many followers these trolls gained on Instagram.
… Facebook told Congress last fall that it had deleted 170 Instagram accounts linked to the IRA. Albright found 27 of the accounts, confirming they were Agency accounts by cross-referencing against Congressional exhibits or media mentions. He downloaded data on those sites in October using a social media analytics site called SocialBlade and found they had nearly 2.2 million followers combined. If such a small fraction of the total Instagram accounts had 2.2 million followers, how many followers did the Russian trolls have on Instagram altogether?


(Related)
Facebook Lets Ads Bare a Man’s Chest. A Woman’s Back Is Another Matter.
Advertisers, especially smaller ones, complain of inconsistency and gender bias in the process that determines whether images are rejected for being sexually suggestive.




Again talks about insider trading risk… Also, “The board’s role in overseeing cybersecurity risk management should be disclosed.”
Laura E. Goldsmith of Proskauer writes:
On February 21, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretive Commission Statement and Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures (the “Guidance”) to assist public companies in meeting their cybersecurity disclosure requirements under the federal securities laws. The Guidance notes that, as reliance on networked systems and the Internet have increased, so too have the risks and frequency of cybersecurity incidents, and companies have no choice but to incur the considerable costs of addressing information security risks, particularly in the wake of a cybersecurity incident. Examples of such costs include IT costs, employee training, remediation expenses, litigation, agency investigations and enforcement actions, reputational harm and damage to long-term shareholder value.
Read more on Proskauer Privacy Law Blog.


(Related)
Due Diligence on Cybersecurity Becomes Bigger Factor in M&A
Automatic Data Processing Inc. deployed a team of cybersecurity, risk management and financial-crime specialists to WorkMarket before acquiring it in January.
The ADP team combed the software maker’s technology, practices and internal policies. It also interviewed staff about monitoring for intrusions, training employees and performing other security tasks. The payroll processor also hired a cybersecurity firm to do its own evaluation.




Here we go again?
TSA Tests See-Through Scanners on Public in New York’s Penn Station
ACLU: “The TSA and Amtrak Police are trying out new see-through body scanners in New York City’s Penn Station that raise serious constitutional questions. And as is so often the case, the government is not being sufficiently transparent about the devices, how they will be used, on whom, and where they will eventually be deployed. We also don’t know who will have access to the information they collect or for how long. There is also reason to believe the technology may not work as well as the TSA says it does. This “passive millimeter wave” technology works by detecting the heat radiating from the human body and analyzing ways in which those emanations may be being blocked by objects hidden on a person’s body. The machines do not emit x-rays or other radiation. The theory is that the operator of the technology will be able to tell if large object such as a suicide vest device is present underneath a person’s clothing. The technology uses an algorithm to determine whether there is an anomaly. The two devices in use are the Stand Off Explosive Detection Technology created by QinetiQ, and Digital Barriers from Thruvis…”




Perspective. Perhaps an indication that we will not be able to counter Russia in the Midterms and possibly not in 2020.
Since December 2016, Congress has given the State Department $120 million to counter foreign attempts to hijack U.S. elections and sow distrust in American democracy, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spent none of that money, The New York Times reports. "As a result, not one of the 23 analysts working in the department's Global Engagement Center — which has been tasked with countering Moscow's disinformation campaign — speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian efforts."




Perspective.
Smartphone users are spending more money each time they visit a website
… The amount of money people spent per visit to online retailers has increased 27 percent since the beginning of 2015, according to new data from Adobe Analytics. Meanwhile, the length of smartphone website visits has actually declined 10 percent.
That means people are getting more comfortable spending on mobile — as long as the experience is quick and easy.




Could be a useful tool.
How to Add Voice Comments to PDFs and Word Documents
Kaizena, originally just a tool for voice commenting on Google Docs, can also be used to add voice comments to PDFs and Word documents. The process of using Kaizena for voice commenting on PDFs and Word documents isn't quite as streamlined as it is for Google Docs, but it's still fairly easy to do. Watch my video that is embedded below to learn how to add voice comments to PDFs and Word documents.




Worth listening to!
Quit Social Media – Do Deep Work
Last night I watched Dr. Cal Newport's TEDx Talk titled Quit Social Media. In this thought-provoking talk Dr. Newport presents the case for quitting social media. He presents the case from the standpoint that social media fragments our attention and prevents us from doing deep work. To help people come to grips with the idea of quitting social media Dr. Newport gives rebuttals to the three most common reasons for not quitting social media.


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