Displaying items by tag: Policies

Twitter has updated its privacy policy so accounts dedicated to sharing someone else's live location are no longer permitted; the first casualty of the new policy is the ElonJet account that posted where Elon Musk's personal jet was.

At least 10,000 Australians have had their online identities stolen and sold on bot markets for an average of $9 per person, finds new research from NordVPN.

Privacy, phishing and scams – oh my. Here’s what cybercriminals have been up to the past quarter.

GUEST RESEARCH: Norton Labs, the global research team at NortonLifeLock, today released its quarterly Consumer Cyber Safety Pulse Report, detailing the top consumer cybersecurity threats and insights from July through September 2022. Leveraging the company's global threat telemetry, the report includes an analysis of the most recent ways cybercriminals are putting privacy and security at risk. Norton telemetry for the month of September in Australia shows there were over 9.5 million blocks in that 30-day period, to deal with the level of threat.

Norton Labs analyzed recent attacks on top companies that were compromised through stolen login credentials. While these campaigns aimed to steal the information that could later be monetized against victims, the goal was to undermine the trusted technologies used to send automated emails, authentication codes and an entire company’s single sign-on.

“Cybercriminals have become experts at catching one-time codes used in most two-factor authentication and they know that by undermining the systems that send the codes, their efforts are even more effective,” said Jeff Nathan, Technical Director and Researcher, NortonLifeLock. “Consumers should use FIDO U2F tokens everywhere they can, as they aren’t susceptible to these phishing attacks.”

Cybercriminals are also turning to scam e-shops offering electronics, jewellery, clothes, and everything-in-between to lure victims. These sites often seem legitimate with polished storefronts, positive reviews, ties to social media accounts and more. However, once you place an order, you may receive a counterfeit item or nothing at all. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, there were 397,826 reports of online shopping fraud in 2021, totaling $392 million in losses. Norton Labs warns shoppers to watch out for prices that may be too good to be true, be wary of sites that request unusual payment-processing methods and to beware of social media ads and unsolicited messages. Using a URL lookup tool like Norton Safe Web can also let shoppers know if a site is already known to be a malicious/scam domain.

Another alarming discovery from Norton Labs is that 80 percent of websites share search terms with advertisers either accidentally or deliberately. Trackers can gain information from website visits, such as a user’s IP address, the website’s content, domain and more. This offers third parties a user’s search terms which can include sensitive information like medical concerns or family and legal situations. Advertisers may then use these characteristics to target ads in unexpected or potentially uncomfortable ways.

Behind the Data

From July through September 2022, Norton thwarted over 9.5 million threats, or around 300 thousand threats per day. Norton blocked: 

• 303,266 million phishing attempts
• 577,438 million file threats
• 1,432 thousand mobile threats
• 39 thousand ransomware attacks 

For more information and Cyber Safety guidance, visit the Norton Internet Security Center.

About NortonLifeLock Inc.  

NortonLifeLock Inc. (NASDAQ: NLOK) is a global leader in consumer Cyber Safety, protecting and empowering people to live their digital lives safely. We are the consumer’s trusted ally in an increasingly complex and connected world. Learn more about how we’re transforming Cyber Safety at www.NortonLifeLock.com.  

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has called on the Albanese Government to release an exposure draft of proposed changes to the Privacy Act before the end of the year, in the wake of recent high-profile data breaches of personal information.

GUEST RESEARCH: Venafi, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity management, today announced the findings of new research that evaluates the complexity of cloud environments and its impact on cybersecurity. The study found that 75% of organisations have experienced a cloud-related security incident over the last 12 months, with more than one in three (37%) suffering at least four incidents. The underlying issue for these security incidents is the dramatic increase in security and operational complexity connected with cloud deployments. And, since the organisations in this study currently host two fifths (39%) of their applications in the cloud but expect increase to 57% over the next 18 months, this complexity will continue to increase.

Australian user data on TikTok can be accessed by the social media platform's employees, warns Shadow cybersecurity minister James Patterson.

COMPANY NEWS: Lookout, a leading provider of endpoint and cloud security solutions, today announced it has acquired SaferPass, an innovative password management company that provides secure online identity solutions for both consumers and businesses. By adding password management technology to its suite of security solutions, Lookout is expanding on its mission to deliver proactive protection and safeguard customer data for individuals and businesses.

The Australian Privacy Foundation has called for changes in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act of 1983 to prevent the ABC from sharing (re-)identifiable personal information with other entities or platforms.

The ABC appears to be hell-bent on introducing compulsory logins for its iview service, rebutting points raised by the Australian Privacy Foundation with somewhat tired objections that do not appear to really hold up under scrutiny.

NortonLifelock has released a new poll not only showing "around 1 in 10 Australian online daters surveyed ran background checks on prospective online dates," with a range of online methods used to do so, while Aussies are also alarmed about the loss of privacy in today's world - and more.

Meta states in an SEC filing it is considering leaving Europe if it can no longer exchange data from European users with the United States, following the Schrems II decision. This story is evolving, and since publication a response from Meta has been received which confirms the company is concerned it will be unable to share data between the EU and US, but denies its concern is over targeted advertising.

It's World Data Privacy Day, during Privacy Awareness Week, with some top tech leaders making their thoughts public on how to stay private.

Cybersecurity vulnerabilities continue to increase as companies grow their digital footprints due to the massive amounts of data being generated, according to Equinix chief privacy officer Peter Waters.

Data privacy will continue to become a more significant consideration and it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to do business anywhere in the world without encountering data privacy laws, according to Richard Marr, General Manager, APAC, Auth0, a product unit of Okta.

The ABC will introduce compulsory logins for its iview service in a staged manner this year, despite the fact that there have been privacy warnings about the sharing of user data with companies like Google.

Data Futurology invites you to a fireside chat around trust dimensions within ethics, with Colin Priest, global lead AI Governance, DataRobot, and Aurelie Jacquet, chair of Standards Australia Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

OAIC: The convenience store group interfered with customers' privacy by collecting sensitive biometric information that was without necessity or reasonable consent.

A large majority of Australian and New Zealand organisations were not adequately prepared for COVID-19 and fear the increased risk they are being exposed to through working from home and flexible work policies, according to newly published survey findings.

COMPANY NEWS by Ping Identity: The global transformation of daily life has changed how people everywhere interact with brands. With experiences increasingly online, Australian consumers are less tolerant of frustration and will abandon a brand if they aren't able to balance convenience and privacy, according to a new survey from Ping Identity, the intelligent identity solution for the enterprise.

GUEST INTERVIEW: In business since 1993, the company says it invented the concept of distributed agile, and knows how to "harness the power of global teams to deliver software excellence at scale," helping clients to "create their own path to digital fluency and to build organisational resilience to navigate the future", and we spoke to Heiko Gerin to learn more.