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Security News for the Week Ending July 26, 2019

Equifax Agrees to Pay UP TO $700 Million to Settle Breach Lawsuits First – the settlement hasn’t been agreed to by the court yet, so this is all speculation. Of the $700 million pot, at least $300 million is set aside to pay damages to consumers.  Another $100 million plus is to pay for credit […]

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Phone Apps Collect User Data Even If You Deny Permissions

All smartphones are data collection machines; hopefully everyone understands that.  There are an amazing number of sensors on the device and many apps just ask for everything.  If the user grants that, then the app can harvest all that data and likely sell it, either individually or in the aggregate. Researchers took a tiny sample […]

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Welcome to the Surveillance State

Let me first say that there is nothing illegal about what follows.  You may not like it, but it is not illegal. Using a public records request, Motherboard obtained a user manual for the Palantir surveillance system called Gotham. The system is used by law enforcement around country (including, for example, New York, New Orleans, […]

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A Cyber Event Interrupted US Power Grid Operations

Stories – and only stories – abound about whether the Ruskies have infiltrated the US power grid – years ago.  The government is not going to tell the truth for fear of scaring the crap out of people. On March 5th a “cyber event” interrupted the power grid in parts of the western United States.  […]

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Amazon Sells Face Recognition Tech To Cops

Amazon is selling facial recognition technology that it has developed – called Rekognition – to law enforcement agencies and maybe others – Amazon won’t say. While there is nothing illegal about this and if Amazon doesn’t do it, others likely would, it certainly raises privacy concerns. Two police departments that are known to have purchased […]

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NBC Reports Seven States Election Data Hacked

NBC is reporting that the Intelligence Community developed substantial evidence that Russian financed attackers compromised the voter registration systems or web sites of seven states to different degrees. Up until this time DHS has been completely mum about this, saying absolutely nothing. But now NBC is reporting that the seven states are Alaska, Arizona, California, […]

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