Cybersecurity News for the Week Ending May 7, 2021

Facebook Says: Give Us Your Data or Pay For Facebook

That is a slight paraphrase, but not much. In light of Apple’s new requirement to ask users for their permission to steal their data, Facebook and others are mounting a full assault on their users. First of all, Facebook grossed $26 billion in the first quarter alone and made $9 billion in profit, so they are unlikely to go broke. Second, who in their right mind would pay for Facebook, so they will never do that. But they and others will try to scare you. In reality, Apple’s new rules will probably hurt a bit, but it may also require Facebook to be more honest and considerate of their customer’s desires. Learn more and be a wise consumer. Credit: Wired

Fed Task Force Presents 48 Recommendations to Combat Ransomware

A cross agency plus industry task force has released recommendations for attacking the ransomware problem. Among the recommendations are a coordinated international attack, sustained and aggressive, whole-of government anti-ransomware campaign, cyber response and recovery FUNDS, an international framework to help organizations prepare for and respond to attacks and ratcheting up the controls on crypto exchanges. Note that if they do this last one, which does make sense, that will force insurance companies to spend more money recovering instead of paying off the crooks. This will raise insurance rates and encourage carriers to not insurance companies that do not have good cyber practices. Credit: CSO Online

Feds Say Repair Monopolies (Like Apple) Hurt Consumers

I wonder how much the Federal Trade Commission spent to come to the conclusion that repair monopolies that many companies have hurts the consumer and industry opposition is “not supported by the record”. The FTC study catalogs the many ways that tech companies make repairs hard and expensive. Companies such as John Deere, Apple, Sony and Microsoft are examples they gave. A number of states are CONSIDERING so-called right to repair laws, but there is no federal legislation in the area. The FTC report also said that these restrictions hurt the poor and marginalized people the most. Credit: Vice

80% of Net Neutrality Comments to FCC Were Fake

A couple of years ago the Trump FCC decided that the FCC really didn’t have any business regulating Internet providers. This came after millions of comments were submitted to the FCC web site. Enough, in fact, to crash the site, even though the FCC lied about the reason the site crashed (they said it was hacked) – they were caught in that lie later. Now it turns out that 40 percent of the comments came from a marketing company the Internet providers hired and a bunch more came from some 19 year old hacker. So much for public comments. Credit: Threat Post

Chip Shortage Threatens Auto and Other Industries that Use Tech in their Products

Car companies are shutting down assembly lines and replacing digital car parts (like digital speedometers) with the old dials. Some companies are deciding which products offer them the highest margin and are shifting chips to those products, leaving others on backorder. Unfortunately, this is an industry that is mostly based in the far east and the U.S. is at the mercy of other countries. This is likely to be a problem until at least next year and it will cause shortages of phones, cars and other high tech stuff. And price increases, to be sure. Credit: Digital Insurance

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