cyber security

What I Read This Week…

First: Drat! I missed posting yesterday…I don’t think I have ever missed a day in the blogathon world. This is at least me fifth year, too. Shame!

Now that is out of the way, here are some cool things I have read about this week:

Traceability and Cattle: RFID Tagging in Uruguay Tracing the origins of the steak on your plate is important for health and safety, but it’s also a big part of the farm to table idea–know your farmers. Cool, right?

What?! She is breaking up with her Apple Watch and I don’t even own one yet! I am so behind.

Since I am reading all about security issues these days, I loved reading this about staying safe on Public wifi–I tend to avoid it, but if I have to use it, I will follow the tips in this story.

Whoa: Injectable brain implant has potential to help cure Parkinson’s Disease.

And finally, I read this story last week, but forgot to link you to it. Scientists finding vessels that connect immune system and brain.

What fun things did you read this week?

Five Things I Learned from Theresa Payton

Great keynote speech from Theresa Payton of Fortalice Group.

1. A $5900 ransomware kit can yield $90,000 for the bad guys. That ROI tempts a lot of bad guys.

2. If your technology can be updated, it can be hacked.

3. It is inevitable that companies will be hacked, but what the bad guys get away with and how your company responds can be controlled.

4. Cost of cyber crime on global scale is $445 billion annually.

5. 95% of breaches are due to human error and 78% of those breaches involve tricking the user.

Payton’s talk was geared to companies, but the lessons are for us as individuals, too. it is up to us to keep our data secure. The best way to do that is to understand what is going on and to always be aware.

The simplest place to start? DON’T USE FREE WIFI.

Learn to recognize spam and don’t click links, open attachments or share persol info when asked to in a random email.

That is just a start. Learn to stay safe. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

Is Big Brother Watching Us?

So I wrote a bit on the Internet of things (IOT) yesterday, and my last line addressed the security issue of all this connectivity.

I think about this a lot. I love technology, but I always question what can be done with the information I am willing to share.

So is Big Brother watching us?

My answer is yes and no.

No, I don’t really think anyone is interested in my texts telling my husband to buy milk on the way home, so in that respect, I don’t think I am being watched.

But I also believe if Big Brother wanted to know I told my husband to buy milk on the way home…he could know that.

Not for nothing that a federal appeals court recently told the NSA to stop bulk collection of phone data. Read more about it here.

My advice? If you don’t want someone to know something, don’t put it in an email or in a text message. Share unicorns and rainbows on Facebook, but it is probably not the best place to rant on …about anything, if you ask me.

I worry about the generation that has grown up with this very public disclosure mindset. I am always telling my own kids they need to be more circumspect in what they are posting. Once out there? It is out there forever. And if you haven’t read them yet, stories about about public shaming and the (happy) backlash against said public shaming, something that was not even on the horizon five or ten years ago, abound.

And if you are not worried, maybe you should be. My daughter’s honors class was asked if the government should be allowed to read texts and gather that phone data. Every single student except my daughter had no problem with that.

Scary, right?