Government – Page 3 – PossibleThreat Articles

Credit to Author: eschuman@thecontentfirm.com| Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2022 04:32:00 -0800

If there are two things that should never mix, it’s cybersecurity/privacy compliance and corporate politics. And yet, that’s at the heart of a compliance fight between Microsoft and German authorities that might wind up punishing the company’s customers.

The German Datenschutzkonferenz — the regulatory body entrusted to handle Germany’s flavor of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — has publicly declared that “no data protection-compliant use of Microsoft Office 365 was possible.”

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ComputerWorld Independent

Would a US digital dollar let the government track you?

October 13, 2022 0 Comments Data privacy, Emerging Technology, Financial Services Industry, Government, Government IT, Security

US legislators continue to press for the creation of a digital dollar, raising questions about whether the move could make it easy for the federal government to track business and consumer transactions.

Putting all the digital dollars on one electronic ledger operated by the Federal Reserve would also be a tempting target for cyber criminals.

In March, lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow the US Treasury to create a digital dollar and pilot it to determine its viability. That same month, President Joe Biden called for more research on developing a national digital currency through the nation’s central bank. The order highlighted the need for more regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies, which have been used for nefarious purposes such as money laundering and other criminal activities.

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ComputerWorld Independent

16 Wall Street firms fined $1.8B for using private text apps, lying about it

September 28, 2022 0 Comments Financial Services Industry, Government, messaging apps, Security

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined big-name banks and brokerages a collective $1.8 billion over workers’ use of private texting apps to discuss work and for not always saving those messages. The fines include $1.1 billion assessed by the SEC and a $710 million fine from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The SEC investigation uncovered what the agency called “pervasive off-channel communications,” that were collected by the firms themselves from employee devices. The employees included senior and junior investment bankers and debt and equity traders.

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MalwareBytes Security

Ransomware rolled through business defenses in Q2 2022

July 13, 2022 0 Comments black basta, Business, conti, Government, lockbit, Ransomware

Credit to Author: Marcin Kleczynski| Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 21:16:17 +0000

2022 is shaping up to be another banner year for ransomware, which continued to dominate the threat landscape in Q2.

The post Ransomware rolled through business defenses in Q2 2022 appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

MalwareBytes Security

Security vulnerabilities: 5 times that organizations got hacked

June 21, 2022 0 Comments Business, exploits, Government, hack, patch management, Ransomware, Vulnerabilities

Credit to Author: Bill Cozens| Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2022 10:04:02 +0000

In this post, we break down 5 times hackers used security vulnerabilities in 2021 to attack governments and businesses.

The post Security vulnerabilities: 5 times that organizations got hacked appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

ComputerWorld Independent

California eyes law to protect workers from digital surveillance

April 21, 2022 0 Comments Government, Privacy, remote work

Credit to Author: Matthew Finnegan| Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2022 09:01:00 -0700

The California State Assembly is considering new rules that would offer workers greater protection from the use of digital monitoring tools by employers.

The “Workplace Technology Accountability Act” (AB 1651), introduced by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, would create a way to protect workers against the use of technologies that can negatively affect privacy and wellbeing.

The bill would “establish much needed, yet reasonable, limitations on how employers use data-driven technology at work,” Kalra told the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee on Wednesday. “The time is now to address the increasing use of unregulated data-driven technologies in the workplace and give workers — and the state — the necessary tools to mitigate any insidious impacts caused by them.”

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ComputerWorld Independent

Will World War III begin in cyberspace?

February 2, 2022 0 Comments Government, Microsoft, Security

Credit to Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols| Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2022 03:00:00 -0800

People die because of cyber wars, even if no bullets are ever fired. Instead, they die in emergency rooms that no longer have power, from broken medical communication networks, and from riots. All of this has happened before. It will happen again. And now, with Russia poised to invade Ukraine and Russian cyberattacks already in motion, we can only hope and pray that what promises to be the first major European war since World War II doesn’t spark the next World War.

If it does, I fear the proximate cause won’t be Russian T-90 main battle tanks trying to smash their way into Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. It will be the Russian GRU Sandworm hacking group launching a cyberattack that perhaps wrecks the European Union power grid; or knocks out major US internet sites such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft; or stops 4G and 5G cellular services in their tracks.

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QuickHeal Security

CetaRAT APT Group – Targeting the Government Agencies

February 2, 2022 0 Comments #cetarat, #sidecopy, cyberattack, cybersecurity, Government, malware, Uncategorized

Credit to Author: Prashant Tilekar| Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2021 12:39:07 +0000

CetaRAT was seen for the first time in the Operation SideCopy APT. Now it is continuously expanding its…

The post CetaRAT APT Group – Targeting the Government Agencies appeared first on Quick Heal Blog | Latest computer security news, tips, and advice.

ComputerWorld Independent

Why the Fed is considering a cash-backed cryptocurrency

February 11, 2020 0 Comments Blockchain, Financial Services Industry, Government, IT Leadership, Mobile, Security, Software Development

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2020 03:00:00 -0800

The Federal Reserve is investigating the potential of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as the backbone for a new, secure real-time payments and settlements system.

The move toward a form of government-backed digital currency is being driven by Fintech firms and a banking industry already piloting or planning to pilot cash-backed digital tokens, according to Lael Brainard, a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

“Today, it can take a few days to get access to your funds. A real-time retail payments infrastructure would ensure the funds are available immediately – to pay utility bills or split the rent with roommates, or for small business owners to pay their suppliers,” said Brainard, who serves as chair of the committees overseeing Financial Stability and Payments, Clearing and Settlements.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Iowa Caucus chaos likely to set back mobile voting

February 4, 2020 0 Comments Blockchain, Emerging Technology, Government, Government IT, Mobile, Privacy, Security

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:51:00 -0800

A coding flaw and lack of sufficient testing of an application to record votes in Monday’s Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus will likely hurt the advancement and uptake of online voting.

While there have been hundreds of tests of mobile and online voting platforms in recent years – mostly in small municipal or corporate shareholder and university student elections – online voting technology has yet to be tested for widespread use by the general public in a national election.

“This is one of the cases where we narrowly dodged a bullet,” said Jeremy Epstein, vice chair of the Association for Computing Machinery’s US Technology Policy Committee (USTPC). “The Iowa Democratic Party had planned to allow voters to vote in the caucus using their phones; if this sort of meltdown had happened with actual votes, it would have been an actual disaster. In this case, it’s just delayed results and egg on the face of the people who built and purchased the technology.”

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