Inside the Ink

February 06, 2020

The Importance of Building Better Passwords

Good password hygiene is one of the easiest ways for businesses and consumers to protect their accounts from the millions of attacks threatening personal data every day.

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February 05, 2020

The Week in Breach: 01/29/20 – 02/04/20

This week, a phishing scam compromised an entire healthcare network, malware impacted productivity, and ransomware attacks become costlier than ever.

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January 29, 2020

That relationship is toxic for you: Why you may need to swipe left on your favorite p@55wOrD$!

Since the start of the new year, we’ve been sifting through billions of compromised email addresses and passwords found on the Dark Web looking for interesting trends in password behavior. Rather than just give you the top 10 passwords to avoid, we wanted to take a closer look at user behavior when creating passwords and how those behaviors lead to predictability and potential exploits. Passwords are often deeply personal expressions of oneself with the goal of making them easier to remember. However, remembering which password is which is becoming increasingly difficult in our hyper-digital daily lives. In fact, it is estimated that average US adult has between 90 and 135 different applications that require a set of credentials (typically a username and/or email address and password combination) for access.

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The Week in Breach: 01/22/20 – 01/28/20

This week, malware compromises online stores, accidents lead to expensive data breaches, and phishing scams top the UK’s threat list.

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January 22, 2020

The Week in Breach: 01/15/20 – 01/21/20

This week, phishing scams cost millions, oversights compromise customer data, and Magecart targets Australian brushfire donors.

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January 15, 2020

The Week in Breach: 01/08/20 – 01/14/20

This week, ransomware closes a company’s doors, an online store gives away customer data, and the UK has a rough year for data security.

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January 08, 2020

The Week in Breach: 01/01/20 – 01/07/20

This week, ransomware disrupts the holidays, a nonprofit organization has its donor list compromised, and “password” remains a stubbornly popular password.

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January 02, 2020

The Week in Breach: 12/25/19 – 12/31/19

This week, ransomware brings bad news for employees, dating app users endure a serious privacy breach, and too many companies are giving in to criminals’ demands.

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December 26, 2019

The Week in Breach: 12/18/19 – 12/24/19

This week, online stores can’t protect their customers, ransom causes chaos at school, and CCPA prepares to go into effect.

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December 23, 2019

Consumers Respond to Data Privacy Regulations

After years of seemingly unending data privacy violations, governments around the world have begun enacting regulations intended to bolster personal privacy in the digital age. Most prominently, in 2018, Europe’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) set a new standard for data security, prompting companies around the world to take the issue more seriously by instituting financial penalties against organizations that fail to protect their customers’ data. In the US, California’s Consumer Privacy Act is scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, 2020, bringing comprehensive regulation to the US and further promulgating the legal ramifications of data security standards. In total, 58% of all countries have some form of privacy regulations on the books, and another 10% are drafting legislation. These laws are intended to support rapidly shifting consumer sentiments that value data protection and personal privacy, two priorities that have gone wildly adrift in the digital age. Unfortunately, despite their best intentions, there is growing evidence that privacy laws aren’t improving consumer confidence in data security. In response, every company should be mindful of this attitude, as it will inevitably shape the business landscape for years to come. Consumers Don’t Trust Companies Until recently, digital platforms participated in a quiet arrangement with their customers who gained free access to platforms in exchange for copious amounts of personal data. Today, that information is some of the most valuable in the world, often compared to digital gold, which companies deploy to provide targeted advertising and other personalized services that drive their bottom lines. However, today’s consumers are well-aware of this arrangement, and many are fighting back. For example, after Facebook’s now-notorious Cambridge Analytica scandal, nearly half of users aged 18 – 29 deleted the app from their phones, signaling a distrust of the platform’s data management standards and disgust with its practices. Moreover, after a data breach, 81% of consumers indicated that they would stop engaging with a brand online, and many consider cybersecurity a prerequisite for making purchases.

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