Search Results for: breach

Data Breaches: First half of 2015 saw venture firms invest $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups

Staff Writer

Data Breaches Boost Funding for Cybersecurity Startups Extract: In the 2015 first half, venture firms invested $1.2 billion in cybersecurity startups, according to researcher CB Insights. That is down slightly from $1.4 billion a year earlier but up sharply from $771 million in 2013’s first half. The shift is particularly notable at Andreessen Horowitz, which used to view security companies as necessary for Internet safety but less lucrative than other technology niches. One reason is that cybersecurity startups were often acquired prior to an initial public offering, says Scott Weiss,…

Why investors should be concerned about cybersecurity breaches

Staff Writer
Liquid Telecom

Major security breaches continue to hit headlines, as businesses are forced to shift from focusing on the imminent nature of threats to calculating their potential financial impact. Companies are investing billions of dollars in cybersecurity, but the average return on spending for security technology is only 14%. Every year the cost of a data breach continues to rise. In spite of this, investors and shareholders don’t react strongly to news of a breach. Target’s stock fell 11% after it revealed it was the victim of one of the largest breaches ever to…

Obama Wants Firms to Notify of Data Breach Within 30 Days

Staff Writer

The Proposal Complemented a Series of Data Privacy Related Rules Suggested by the White House Today. President Barack Obama wants companies to notify consumers within 30-days of a personal data breach. Despite a slew of pressing issues facing the administration and a potentially unsympathetic Republican-led congress, the White House today unveiled a handful of legislative proposals aimed at safeguarding consumer privacy, continuing along a path established by its privacy and big data report published in May. The administration’s Personal Data Notification and Protection Act is being pitched in part as…

Why did Target take so long to report data security breach?

Staff Writer

The Target data breach affecting 40 million of the retailer’s credit and debit cards stems back to Nov. 27, two days before Black Friday. So why are we just hearing about it now, three weeks later? Blame protocol.  Although it might seem like ages to affected consumers, in the scheme of data breaches, even three weeks is a pretty quick time frame to spot a breach and notify customers, said Will Pelgrin, president and chief executive of the Center for Internet Security. “No matter how quickly an entity notifies you,…

2020 Cybersecurity trends for businesses

Dianne Jacobs
Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is key in any business because cyber attacks are a daily occurrence and when an organization is breached, millions to even billions of dollars is lost due to lawsuits, fines and loss of revenues and regaining customer trust? Well, that could take years to build back…if ever. Because of this, I believe that one of the biggest trends to impact cybersecurity in the coming year is the growing importance for organizations to view cyber risk as a measure of business risk because cybersecurity is no longer just the responsibility…

Kenyans to rely on new Data Protection Law

Dianne Jacobs
Safaricom

The Data Protection Act that came into effect last month is expected to provide a framework for data protection in the country, and help boost privacy of the citizens. Before the Act was passed, Kenya did not have a specific data protection law that regulated the sector, exposing private data of citizens to misuse. The law conceived in 2015 is meant to provide a regulatory provision in the collection, retrieval, processing, storing, use and disclosure of personal data. Under Article 31(c), the Act outlines the right of every person not…

Uber loses London operating licence due to a pattern of failures

Editor
Uber London

The online taxi app platform Uber has ljust ost its licence to operate private hire vehicles in London after authorities found that more than 14,000 trips were taken with uninsured drivers. Transport for London announced the decision not to renew the ride-hailing firm’s licence at the end of a two-month probationary extension granted in September. Uber was told then it needed to address issues with checks on drivers, insurance and safety, but has failed to satisfy the capital’s transport authorities. TfL said on Monday it had identified a “pattern of…

Cryptocurrency may have bottomed in December

A technical indicator that incorporates both bitcoin’s price and trading volume is signaling the cryptocurrency may have bottomed in December. The money flow index (MFI), also known as the volume-weighted relative strength index, is used to identify buying and selling pressure and oscillates between zero to 100. A rising MFI indicates an increase in buying pressure, while a falling MFI is considered a sign of increasing selling pressures. Essentially, the MFI validates or confirms price trends. Many times, however, the indicator diverges from the prevailing market trend. For instance, BTC dashed hopes…

Facebook institutional investors want Zuckerberg ousted as chairman

olivia Craig

Amidst increasing incidences of data breaches such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw the personal data of 87 million Facebook members used without permission, to Russian sourced posts aimed at influencing the midterm elections, a report from Reuters states that four institutional investors in Facebook are looking to have Zuckerberg replaced by an independent chairman. A similar proposal was defeated by stockholders in 2017. The filing asking for a vote to remove Zuckerberg was made to Facebook’s board by the state treasurers of Illinois, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, who…

17 Canadian federal depts. and agencies failed basic tests for credit card data security

Dianne Jacobs
Facebook

The Canada Revenue Agency, the RCMP, Statistics Canada and more than a dozen other federal departments and agencies have failed an international test of the security of their credit card payment systems. Altogether, half of the 34 federal institutions authorized by the banking system to accept credit-card payments from citizens and others have flunked the test — risking fines and even the revocation of their ability to accept credit and debit payments. Those 17 departments and agencies continue to process payments on Visa, MasterCard, Amex, the Tokyo-based JCB and China…