Omni Hotels Subtly Discloses Payment System Hack
In what I like to call a cowardly Friday afternoon data breach
disclosure, Omni Hotels disclosed that several of its hotel properties were
impacted by malware infecting its point-of-sale (PoS) systems.
In an attempt to miss the news cycle and fly below the
radar, companies often make data breach incidents public on Friday afternoons. While Omni Hotels is not alone in this tactic,
the company did go a bit further in an effort to bury the incident, despite
claiming that the privacy and protection of their guests’ information is a
matter they take very seriously.
In analyzing the page hosting the breach notice, SecurityWeek
discovered lines of code that specifically instruct search engines such as
Google to not index the page and not include it in search results.
For my Data Management students.
To succeed in IoT, hire a chief data officer
For many businesses, ownership of the Internet of Things (IoT) lies within a number of C-suite titles. At Coca-Cola Enterprises, the CIO oversees IoT.
At Amazon, it’s the CTO. At GM, the Chief
Infotainment Officer and CTO co-manage IoT.
But IoT demands an interdisciplinary
approach, whether the desired outcome is to streamline internal processes,
introduce new customer experiences or uncover new revenue. This requires collaboration among multiple
business units, some of which traditionally work independently from each other,
such as IT and operations.
… Whether the
world will have 20 billion, 34 billion or 50 billion connected devices by 2020, the industry hasn’t
reached a consensus. But analysts can
agree that those devices generate massive amounts of data —
to the tune of 44 trillion gigabytes — so the more important issue is
what companies do with all the information, whether they harness it to develop
new services, improve internal collaboration processes or find fresh ways to
interact with customers.
(Related) Sometimes
it takes a while for the laws/regulations/processes to catch up.
Tom Spring reports:
Late last month, TrapX Labs’
security team spotted an uptick in the prevalence of a new more virulent strain
of malware targeting hospitals and their IoT equipment. Researchers discovered attackers targeting
unpatched medical equipment running Windows XP and Windows 7 with variations of
attacks such as the Conficker worm, long thought obsolete. The malware, TrapX said, now has an enhanced
ability to laterally move within a network and target specific types of medical
devices that have a strong likelihood of connecting to backend medical record
systems.
But patching or ridding devices of malware is also
complicated, for reasons many members of the public may not realize:
The logical fix for infected IoT gear is to scrub the equipment of the
malware and add security software. But that’s rarely an option. In many cases, when hospitals become aware of
malware infection on MRI machines, ultrasound equipment and drug pumps their hands are tied by Federal Drug Administration
rules that prevent changes in equipment software. “The FDA has strict rules and
regulations about medical devices and what updates, firmware or patches can be
applied to those systems,” Chon said. “When
an MRI machine gets approved by the FDA it’s considered a diagnostic equipment
or a treatment. FDA rules state any
changes made to that system have to go back through the FDA certification
process,” he said.
Read more on Threatpost.
“If we like the decision, we’ll abide by it, if we don’t like
the decision, it never happened.”
South China Sea: Hague rules in favor of Philippines over
China
An international tribunal in the Hague ruled in favor of
the Philippines in a maritime dispute Tuesday, concluding that there was no
legal basis for China to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China
Sea.
China rejected the decision by the Permanent Court of
Arbitration, which is likely to have lasting implications for the resource-rich
hot spot, which includes one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
"China
neither accepts nor recognizes it," the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said in a statement.
Perspective. Not
sure how I would use this information.
We touch our phones 2,617 times a day, says study
We’re obsessed with our phones, a new study has found. The heaviest smartphone users click, tap or
swipe on their phone 5,427 times a day, according to researcher Dscout.
That’s the top 10 percent of phone users, so one would
expect it to be excessive. However, the
rest of us still touch the addictive things 2,617 times a day on average. No small number.
… For more on how this study was conducted, you can download a PDF of the report.
Google’s response to Apple’s development University
plan. (See Sunday’s blog)
Google Plans to Train 2 Million Developers for Android
Google launched a program to train 2 million developers in
India for its Android platform as its fires up a race with Apple Inc. for the country’s
developers to create innovative mobile apps.
The Android Skilling program will be introduced for free
across hundreds of public and private universities and training schools through
a specially designed, in-person program this year. The program would also be available through
the government’s National Skills Development Corporation of India, the company
said in a statement.
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