Tag Archive for: board

Elon joins Twitter’s board, Apple’s subscriptions pilot, WWDC stays online – TechCrunch

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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps to try, too.

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Apple pilot tests a commerce feature for subscription apps 

Apple app store iOS

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Apple may be changing how iOS subscriptions operate when price increases are involved. Recently, some developers noticed that the streaming service Disney+ was seemingly only informing users of upcoming price changes, then automatically opting them in. This is different from how subscription price increases would typically be handled. In most other cases, a customer is presented with options to either agree…

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Only 23% of board members consider ransomware their top priority

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A security logo is shown on screen during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show on Jan. 7, 2016, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Research from Egress on Wednesday found that only 23% of board members consider ransomware their top priority.

The software company said it’s a major concern because according to the survey, 59% of organizations fell victim to ransomware and a staggering 84% of organizations were victims of phishing, even though 98% of companies offer anti-phishing training to the staff.

“Cybercriminals continue to leverage sophisticated social engineering attempts to catch users at a weak moment and gain access to the sensitive data they’re seeking,” said Jack Chapman, vice president of threat research at Egress. “The results of this study show that cybersecurity training is limited in its effectiveness and it’s a big ask for people within an organization to be constantly vigilant to phishing threats”

It’s incredibly concerning that only 23% of board members see ransomware as a major threat to their organizations, said Hank Schless, senior manager, security solutions at Lookout. Schless said this might happen because board members think about these events in terms of what can have the most impact on the business. However, a successful ransomware attack can be detrimental to the existence of any organization. 

“Everyone needs to understand the connection between security and business continuity,” Schless said. “Today, when entire organizations run on cloud-based infrastructure, everything about the business relies on having secure systems. The commercialization of ransomware and the emergence of the Ransomware-as-a-Service market have made these attacks much more viable for less sophisticated hackers. This will only increase the number of ransomware attacks organizations face.” 

John Bambenek, principal threat hunter at Netenrich, said business leaders are in business to make money and they view security as a cost center, ironically even for security companies.

“Part of this number is complacence,” Bambenek said. “Like car insurance, no one thinks accidents will happen to them until they do. Part of it is the idea…

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MCCH board updated on ransomware effect on payroll | Local News

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MURRAY – The Murray-Calloway County Public Hospital Board of Trustees was updated Wednesday on the status of a ransomware attack that has left the hospital without access to its payroll information.

MCCH CEO Jerry Penner said employees will be paid on schedule today, but the paychecks will be based on a pay period in November because the hospital cannot currently access its hourly pay records. Penner said the hospital learned on Dec. 13 about a ransomware attack on Ultimate Kronos Group, a human resources management company with which MCCH contracts. According to a report Penner cited from Becker’s Hospital Review, the ransomware attack reportedly affected Kronos’ Private Cloud software platform that many hospitals, health care providers and other companies across the country use for scheduling, timekeeping, payroll and human resources. The attack occurred on Dec. 11, and the company said in a Dec. 13 blog post that it is working to fix the problem. However, Kronos said it could take several weeks to restore services.

“This ties into our payroll and finances with our human resources accounting for people signing off on overtime and their regular time, and Kronos unfortunately had a ransomware attack,” Penner said. “So it brought us all to our knees on this particular aspect because last time I checked, I’ve got about 1,000 employees we’ve got to pay (Thursday). So we had about 10 days to figure this out, how we pay everybody. The problem is, all our data is in the cloud and you’ve got to figure out a way to bring that information down, but you can’t at this point because it’s all been frozen.”

Penner said there are probably 600-700 other hospitals facing the same problem. He said the fact that it affects the last paycheck of the year makes the situation even more difficult because the hospital has to figure out how to incorporate that pay period into its 2021 W-2s without even knowing how long it will be before the problem can be fixed. W-2 forms must be ready by Jan. 31, he said.

“The bottom line is … we’re going to roll back to the last pay period that we had before Thanksgiving, which was the seventh of…

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Healthcare Highlights: Cyber-Security, Licensing Board Issues, and Employer COVID-19 Regulations | Ward and Smith, P.A.

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Recently, several Ward and Smith attorneys held a Health Care Breakfast and Learn to provide insights on the healthcare industry relevant to their specific areas of expertise, from privacy and data security to professional licensing issues and, labor and employment.

Privacy and Data Security

Peter McClelland, a privacy, data security, and technology attorney who is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional, began the discussion with some trends and tips for healthcare providers to be aware of in regards to cybersecurity.

“Healthcare and financial services are always neck and neck each year for which industry in the United States gets targeted the most by malicious cyber actors,” said McClelland.

In the world of data security, there are three major trends that have been especially relevant to healthcare providers over the past few years:

  • Substantial increase in cyberattacks – malicious actors using trusted third parties or managed service providers to gain access to computer systems and personal information
  • Significant uptick in the sophistication of cyberattacks – phishing schemes, tiny changes in email addresses, and spoofed email accounts increasingly difficult to identify
  • Increased costs associated with successful attacks – average cost for a data breach in 2020 was around $4 million

Outside of the healthcare industry, an attack on a managed service provider, service partner, or supplier is typically referred to as a supply chain attack. These supply chain attacks are the ones that have made headlines in recent years, with companies such as Colonial Pipeline, Microsoft, and Cassia experiencing significant costs to their finances and brand reputation.

“When you read or hear about any of these things in the news, it can be easy to think that events are only tangentially relevant to you,” explains McClelland, “but the same techniques in all of those get repurposed against entities in the healthcare space every day, whether they make headlines or not.”

McClelland reported that phishing scams in prior years almost seemed to be deliberately obvious in terms of sophistication. Formerly, the most advanced phishing and ransomware technology was mostly just available to…

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