Commentary

There was initial concern about the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that would allow the government and private industry exchange information to fend off cyberattacks didn’t allow much protection of privacy for regular citizens. In response, several amendments were added to the bill and it passed in a 14 to 1 vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cyberterrorism will be thwarted and private citizens will maintain their privacy. Or will they?

The American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy rights group still believe there is inadequate protection for private citizens’ privacy rights. Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel for the ACLU, believes the current bill is too vague on how private companies were to share information with the government and if it would flow into other branches of the government such as the NSA. For a full article about CISA and its detractors, click here:: Privacy buffs say amended CISA bill can still further gov’t surveillance

Layman Mutiyah, the researcher that discovered a way to delete other people’s photos on Facebook, has found another flaw in Facebook’s mobile phone app. Layman found a privacy vulnerability within Facebook’s Photo Sync, a feature that allows Facebook to store any photos taken by your phone into their cloud in case you want to post them later on. He found that if you had Facebook’s Photo Sync feature turned on, any app with permission to access photos on your phone could access your synced photos as well.

The problem is that if you have authorized an app to access the photos on your device, any private photo you have will be in Facebook’s data cloud that could be intercepted by cybercriminals, posted onto your Facebook without your consent by hackers, and all sorts of privacy invasion. Luckily, Mutiyah informed Facebook and the security hole was plugged, however you may want to turn off Facebook Sync anyway to make sure whatever is private will stay that way. For a full article on this discovered flaw, click here:: Thought your private phone photos weren’t on Facebook? Think again…

Many businesses and companies read up on the security of software before implanting it into their network and allowing employees to use it. However as time goes on, many companies are using mobile apps to supplement and run their business. That’s where the problem starts.

To reach customer demand and strike when the mobile use is at its hottest, many mobile apps have been rushed through production without full security testing. The risk of data leakage and malware is so high that experts believe that we will see a heavy increase in malware-infected mobile apps and devices over the next year due to the hastiness of getting their app onto the market. Be wary, read up, and perhaps hold off a year or two on implementing a mobile app for your business until all the bugs are the sorted out. For a full article on this topic, click here:: Rush to Release Resulting in Vulnerable Mobile Apps

In April 2014, Community Health Systems was hacked and had customer data stolen. Then Anthem Healthcare, one of the largest healthcare insurance providers in the U.S., had a data breach that exposed the records of 80 million individuals. Last week, Premera Blue Cross each reported that 11 million subscribers were potentially exposed due to cyberattacks. What could these breaches be leading to?

Sure, the customers’ personal information can be used to commit identity theft and fraud, but that large amount of data could be used for larger cybercrimes. David B. Amsler, president and CIO of Foreground Security, believes it is a sign of a much larger campaign and the health insurance attacks are merely the first phase. Time can only tell if that were to be true, but in the meantime healthcare providers and all companies that collect personal info need to be diligent and on their guard. For a full article on this topic, click here:: Healthcare Breaches Like Premera First Stage of Bigger Attacks?

This year’s Pwn2Own Hacking Competition in Vancouver lead to a shocking finding. Participants from around the world were rewarded $557,500 in bounties for finding critical bugs in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari web browsers along with flaws in Windows OS, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash. The bounty hunter of the year was South Korean security researcher Jung Hoon Lee who claimed $110,000 in less than two minutes by exploiting a flaw in Google Chrome.

While this may seem like we shouldn’t trust any of these major browsers, in the end this is a positive story. The purpose of these competitions isn’t to worry or be frightened to use any of these services, but to know that they are frequently checking themselves and updating themselves to eliminate any weaknesses. With that said, taking personal steps to protect yourself, your computer, and your identity can ensure a safer internet experience. For a full article about this event, please click here:: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE – All Browsers Hacked at Pwn2Own Competition