Tag Archive for: safer

How to feel safer at home, from smartphone SOS service to security

/in


A vacationing man and woman riding bikes down a sunny street with palm trees and mountains behind the town.

When I host a national radio show and podcast about all things tech, digital security is always in every program. Take your home’s router, for instance. An outdated model can put your entire network, files, and anything connected to it at risk for hackers. Tap or click for five reasons you need to replace that old router.

Other ways of protecting your digital life don’t require spending a dime. Tap or click for four quick security checks you can do now for free.

Then there are those security tips a little closer to home. Whether you have a full house or live alone, there’s a lot you can do to feel safer where you live.

1. Connect with your community

Getting to know your neighbors can be one of the best ways to feel more secure. If you haven’t, introduce yourself. You’ll feel better knowing the neighborhood has your back.

Source…

Are Cold Wallets Safer Than Hot Wallets For Storing Your Crypto Keys?

/in


Recently, hackers stole around $5.2 million worth of Solana from 8,000 hot wallets, such as Phantom, Slope, and Trust. Solana claimed that the security vulnerability was in the code of the third-party wallets and not in their own. 

Now in the light of such revelations, cyber experts are debating whether crypto investors should store their private keys in cold wallets in order to secure their crypto holdings from such cyber hacking.

Incidentally, Peck Shield Alert, a security firm has Tweeted that around $8,000 worth Stablecoin and Solana have been stolen. Besides, Solana has also struggled with security issues in the past, and now, probes has revealed that as many as four addresses were linked to the hacker. 

Crypto investing has come in vogue of late as they are considered the currencies of tomorrow. They are based on the Blockchain, and will be the native currency in the WEB3 space, the new digital world that we will be able to access in a few years using virtual reality.

Central banks across the world, including the Reserve Bank of India have announced they will be launching the central bank digital currency (CBDC) soon. As we usher towards this new world, the important question that now rises is how we can keep our money safe.

Technically, you can store crypto in a custodial wallet, where they do not provide you with a private key. Else, you can choose a hot wallet where your private key is stored in a browser extension or a desktop application, and lastly there is the most secure of all, the cold wallet, where you store your key in a hardware wallet. Keeping the private key secure is the most important piece of the puzzle.

Let us understand the concept of hot and cold wallets in detail.

Hot Wallets

Hot wallets include Web-based wallets (browser extension), mobile wallets, and desktop wallets. They are all connected to the Internet. In other words, if your system gets compromised, or if the hot wallet you use has security vulnerabilities, like in the Solana hacking case, where hackers stole the private key from inactive crypto Slope, Trust, and Phantom wallets, hackers can steal your private keys and drain your wallet. They can use a crypto tumbler…

Source…

Fact or Fallacy: Is Cloud Storage Safer Than On-Premises Databases?

/in


Fact: Neither the Cloud nor On-Premises Storage Is the Silver Bullet

Ransomware is devastating because attackers can effectively hold data hostage and force K–12 school districts to pay exorbitant sums. If these demands aren’t met, hackers could sit on that encrypted data forever, distribute it or even destroy it.

But, should you pay? Probably not. In its “State of Ransomware 2021” report, Sophos reveals that organizations that paid a ransom recovered just 65 percent of their data on average — while only 8 percent got back everything they’d lost. There’s also no guarantee that attackers won’t retain copies of your data. The decryption process is often unreliable and painstakingly slow. Finally, surrendering payment is legally dubious in many cases, as that could fund further criminal activity.

Overall, no approach is perfect when dealing with ransomware; even expert opinions remain split. That’s why retaining multiple data backups (in multiple locations) is critical to surviving these common attacks. And no backup solution, local or cloud, is perfect, which means that school districts should proceed cautiously. Before doubling down on any solution, IT administrators should do a deep, holistic evaluation of their security and goals.

Fact: Schools Are Legally Mandated to Provide Strong Data Protections

School systems oversee a wide variety of personal data on students, teachers and staff. Digital systems also let students and parents access grades, assignments and other key resources such as documents, media and more. Schools must protect any private data while judiciously delegating access via authorization and authentication.

Thanks to federal regulations such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, public-facing data (which has low sensitivity) requires fewer protections than tightly controlled data (such as personally identifiable information). Schools must decide what data fits into which box and plan their storage accordingly.

DIVE DEEPER: Understand FERPA, CIPA and other student data privacy laws.

Fact: Local Storage Alone Is Costly, a Hybrid Solution Might Work Best

While pure local storage may seem best, there are costs to consider. Districts…

Source…

Britain can inspire the world to make the internet much safer for our children

/in


“Share your data if you’re looking for a wee stalker”. That is the response by a child from Edinburgh when asked about sharing too much personal information online.

Others see content that promotes self-harm and suicidal thoughts without searching for it. Another is sent inappropriate adverts when playing online games.

This is the backdrop to the introduction of our Children’s Code, a crucial piece of work to make sure that children can safely use online services.

The code came into force in the UK last year and it is already prompting tech companies to make changes to better protect children.

But we knew from the moment that we started drafting our code that its value in keeping children safe would depend on how the code was received internationally.

The digital world is borderless, and so many of the online services children access are based outside of the UK. That is one of the reasons why I’m heading to Washington this week for the biggest international gathering to help protect people’s personal information.

The more other countries require companies to protect children’s data, the more children in the UK are protected.

And the UK has an opportunity to influence real change based on the world-leading code that we have developed.

We’ve seen rapid changes in how British children are protected online following the expectations set in our code.

Targeted and personalised adverts are being blocked for children; children’s accounts set to private by default, plus location history turned off by default. Games and video streaming have geolocation unavailable or off by default. Social media platforms have security measures in place to reduce risks to children.

These are some of the types of changes we want to see on a global scale.

And there’s more to be done to assess the correct ages of children, give them privacy notices they understand, and to stop the creation of profiles using their personal data.

In Washington, the Information Commissioner’s Office will be talking to social media companies in scope of the code and building relationships with the regulators, civil society voices and lawmakers that collectively push for them to do better.

We’re calling…

Source…