Kansas City

I read an interesting article about Kansas City, MO and how they were audited to show weaknesses in their cyber security protection. Nineteen different departments were audited. Apparently they have access to your birthday, social security, bank account information, medical information and credit card numbers. The weaknesses weren't disclosed in the article I read but apparently some departments may have information that you wouldn't expect them to have but he didn't go into much detail. A great thing came from this audit, they have are making an incident response plan for what to do if any departments and any information is breached. I wonder how many cities have a plan like this in place and how many NEED to be audited. It's very easy to get information, especially if a certain seemingly unknown department has critical information that could be easily accessed. This should be FIRST priority when a city starts taking money and information from it's residents.

Kansas City Audit

ADORABLE!

I want to step back from the political side of technology and into the adorable side for a moment. I read an article on CNN.com that a company called Mimo, is producing something that new parents and seasoned parents alike can benefit from. For a measly $200, you get three onesies with sensors with bluetooth capability. You can set alerts to track when baby rolls over, wakes up, etc. Over time it can tell you if you're feeding your baby too far away from bedtime or if you're putting your baby to sleep too late. Is this the new age of parenting? Tell me what you think!

Baby Monitoring

The Future Defense in Cyber Security

I watched an amazing video this week about the future warriors of cyber security. They've added Cyber Security to the curriculum of one high school in Huntsville, Alabama. I think this is an AMAZING idea for a couple reasons. One, starting kids as young as possible into where the future is headed and ensuring they will always have a job. Two, these are the real life experiences high school should offer, instead of math you will never use. Taken straight from one of the students, "It's easy to attack but difficult to defend." Take a look at the video and let me know what you think!

Anthem Hack

SO. Anthem was hacked last week. May have gotten access to birthdays, social security numbers, etc. Yet another data breach. We hear about them all the time, it seems. The technology seems to get better and better for hackers and the companies can't seem to keep up. Is that the problem? Companies really have no one to blame but themselves. They don't take simple security measures that would better insure them against hacks like this. Hackers don't need to be big badasses with a computer, nearly anyone can do it. Granted, it's a question of morals on the hacker's part at that point. But blaming the company doesn't do much for the consumer, does it? So what can companies do to to better secure themselves? What can the consumers do? Companies can follow a few simple things to best keep their information safe. Clean computers and servers internally often, keep up with software updates, make sure devices are clean, use firewalls and spam filters and perhaps have a special security team available to specialize in your company and your information. On the flip side, the information holds well with consumers too. With the additions of encrypt your passwords and change them often. Be SMART.  Don't click on obviously scammy things. Don't keep financial information on your computer. Don't have your passwords saved by your browser. There are endless ways to stay up to date on protecting yourself. So whether it's the company's fault or your fault, doesn't matter. It's both party's priority to make sure information is kept safe.

For your enjoyment, I've included a video link with some tips to keep your information safe.
:)

Click me!  

The UK and the US have gone crazy!

OK, so. Cyber security. Definitely something we all need to be concerned about but it seems like the United Kingdom and the United States have gone to the dark side. This week, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron and our president met to discuss the issues surrounding cyber security in our countries. The prime minister wants to ban certain forms of encryption which would ban certain apps or forms of communications in the UK. Hmmmm, sounds fishy to me. Our own White House has proposed several expansions of penalties to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which would include the ability to be prosecuted and sent to jail for sharing passwords to video streaming websites, like HBO-go. How insane does that sound to you? We need to definitely do something about the state of cyber security, with the hacking we have going on of celeb's picture leaks, twitter hacking, etc but is this approach the best approach? The laws they're trying to pass wouldn't even touch a cyber terrorist, because they wouldn't be stupid enough to get caught. The people they're putting at risk for prosecution are the people they should be getting advisement from when researching the Sony hack or things like that. I don't believe this will solve any problems but both governments seem to be equally ignorant about the state of cyber security. Read the full article here or watch the video up top and let me know what you think.