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When companies suffer a data breach or similar hack into their systems, they lose more than their good reputation and positive brand value — they also lose a whole lot of money. A new study finds that “malicious” breaches cost an average of $840,000, while “non-malicious” data breaches cost an average of $470,000. Read on to learn what companies are doing to protect themselves — and their customers! Read More
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emailFacebook Graph Search: The Good, The Bad and The Scary
Posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 by Nikki Junker
Facebook has always had issues when it comes to privacy. Each time the social media giant comes out with a new feature, it seems there is an uproar by privacy advocates about the implications and potential security issues. This took place with the Timeline switch, the sponsored stories debacle, and now one of Facebook’s newest features, Graph Search, is in the hot seat.
Let’s take a closer look at this new tool and find out what it is, why you would use it, and how to protect yourself from its prying eyes. Read More
Unencrypted Electronic Healthcare Records: The Biggest Threat to Patient Privacy Protection
Posted on Friday, November 16th, 2012 by Jan Legnitto
If you think healthcare data breaches that expose patients’ sensitive information are rare events, think again. A recent study found that 43% of all data breaches happened in the healthcare sector. During the past three years, 21 million healthcare records have been compromised, according to HHS. Could yours be one of them?
Find out how unencrypted health data and mobile devices are jeopardizing patient privacy protection and exposing you to identity theft. Read More
Childhood Identity Theft: What Parents Need to Know About COPPA Rights
Posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Parents, are you taking advantage of your COPPA rights?
After all, your child’s sensitive personal information is extremely valuable. But you have to know your rights before you can start to protect your child’s online identity and security. But nowadays, where to begin?
Lately it seems that children are born and have their entire lives documented online — first it’s by parents uploading newborn photos (along with child’s name and birth date!) to Instagram and Facebook (all of the photos shared with dodgy security settings at best).
Next it’s uploading innocent home videos to YouTube that expose not just a glimpse into the family home, but also potentially reveal personal details like home address, where and when you take vacations, when you celebrate birthdays, and with whom, along with the names, faces, and approximate ages of every family member (why not have the camera zoom in on recent bank statements to make a cybercrook’s job that much easier?).
Read more to learn ways to protect your family — and which popular websites are taking advantage of your child’s personal information.
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What Does the NSA Know About You?
Posted on Monday, August 27th, 2012 by Kent Lawson
The New York Times recently published an astonishing article that detailed how the NSA is busy compiling vast amounts of information about U.S. citizens.
While most people have heard about the NSA and the Patriot Act, what is truly frightening is how little oversight this program has, and also how few people, including politicians, seem to know about it.
Have we entered an Orwellian state and simply not gotten the memo? Read on to find out more. Read More
FTC, Facebook Settle Online Privacy, Deceptive Advertising Dispute
Posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Ever had the frustrating experience of discovering your so-called “private” photo album on Facebook has been made public for all the world to see? Well, here’s a bit of good news.
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission finally reached its long-awaited privacy settlement with Facebook, resolving charges that Facebook deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.
This concludes a long saga between the FTC and Facebook, and although Facebook admitted no wrong-doing, the FTC pressed on with its case for months. What were some of the privacy offenses? Read More
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Pop Quiz: Do You Have to Provide Your Child’s Social Security Number on School Enrollment Forms?
Posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
This recent editorial cartoon in The New Yorker put a face on how simple it is for hackers to succeed at stealing sensitive information online.
It happens as easily to adults as it does to kids.
Nearly 400,000 kids get their identities stolen each year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
In fact, federal authorities have warned about people with bad credit buying “credit profile numbers” or CPNs from businesses that use computers to locate and sell Social Security numbers issued to children.
Identity thieves steal kids’ Social Security numbers because their credit is generally untarnished. It’s not until years later — when they apply for a store credit card, a college loan, or a job — that they find out their credit has been destroyed. Read More
Covering Your Ass-ets: Average Internet User Risks $37,000 In Online Accounts
Posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
If you’re like most people, you are not covering your “ass-ets” across all digital devices.
A global study from McAfee revealed that consumers place an average value of $37,438 on the “digital assets” they own across multiple digital devices, yet more than 33% lack protection across computers, smartphones, and tablets.
Despite the high financial and emotional value of their assets stored in various places, 32% of the consumers who don’t use security protection on all of their devices still don’t think they need it.
However, 86% did agree that purchasing security protection was money well spent (ahem, like using a personal VPN). Read More
Consumer Reports: Most People Worried About Online Privacy, Personal Data, Employer Bias, Privacy Policies
Posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Like most of us concerned with online privacy, a new Consumer Reports survey echoes the sentiments of the day.
A whopping 71% of consumers have serious concerns about their online privacy and about the collection and use of their personal data. Among smartphone users, the big worry — among 65% of consumers — is that apps could access their contacts, photos, and location data without their permission. And 53% are concerned that data from their online activities and purchases could be used to deny employment or loans.
These findings came from a recent telephone survey among 1,017 random adults that described several common privacy concerns. Read More
Last Chance to Erase Your Google Search Results For Good
Posted on Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
Attention, privacy seekers!
IT World says this is your last chance to tell Google to forget about you.
Until March 1, when the search giant’s new single privacy policy goes into effect, there are some simple steps to take to erase your past history. Read More