Security News

Blackbaud settles with FTC after that IT breach exposed millions of people's info
2024-02-02 21:12

Blackbaud, which had data on millions of people stolen from it by one or more crooks, has promised to shore up its IT defenses in a proposed deal with the FTC. In announcing the draft settlement, the US watchdog's boss Lina Khan, Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, and Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya blasted Blackbaud - a cloud software provider for schools, charities, and other orgs - for its "Unfair and deceptive data security practices" in a statement [PDF]. "The FTC charges that Blackbaud's reckless data retention practices rendered its security failures much more costly: by hoarding reams of data that it did not reasonably need, Blackbaud's breach exposed far more data," they said.

FTC orders Blackbaud to boost security after massive data breach
2024-02-01 22:23

Blackbaud has settled with the Federal Trade Commission after being charged with poor security and reckless data retention practices, leading to a May 2020 ransomware attack and a data breach affecting millions of people. The FTC's complaint alleges that the company "Failed to monitor attempts by hackers to breach its networks, segment data to prevent hackers from easily accessing its networks and databases, ensure data that is no longer needed is deleted, adequately implement multifactor authentication, and test, review and assess its security controls" and "Allowed employees to use default, weak, or identical passwords for their accounts."

FTC orders Intuit to stop pushing "free" software that isn't really free
2024-01-22 21:37

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ordered Intuit to stop promoting its software products and services as "Free" unless they're actually free for all consumers. As the FTC said, around two-thirds of all tax filers in the U.S. could not use TurboTax for free as advertised by the accounting and tax software provider, instead being hit with charges when it was time to file.

FTC Bans InMarket for Selling Precise User Location Without Consent
2024-01-22 07:02

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is continuing to clamp down on data brokers by prohibiting InMarket Media from selling or licensing precise location data. The settlement is part of...

FTC bans one more data broker from selling your location info
2024-01-19 17:13

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission continues to target data brokers, this time in a settlement with InMarket Media, which bans the company from selling Americans' precise location data. InMarket is a Texas-based data aggregation company specializing in collecting and analyzing people's location data.

FTC secures first databroker settlement banning sale of sensitive location data
2024-01-15 15:34

Infosec in brief The US Federal Trade Commission has secured its first data broker settlement agreement, prohibiting X-Mode Social from sharing or selling sensitive location data. In its complaint, the FTC accused X-Mode, which sold its assets to successor firm Outlogic in 2021, of selling raw non-anonymized location data collected through its own apps and an SDK for embedding in third-party applications.

FTC Bans Outlogic (X-Mode) From Selling Sensitive Location Data
2024-01-10 08:47

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday prohibited data broker Outlogic, which was previously known as X-Mode Social, from sharing or selling any sensitive location data with...

FTC bans data broker from selling Americans’ location data
2024-01-09 20:32

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission banned data broker Outlogic, formerly X-Mode Social, from selling Americans' raw location data that could be used for tracking purposes. Under the order released today, the first time data brokers were barred from sharing and selling users' sensitive location data, Outlogic must now delete all unlawfully collected sensitive location data, including any models or algorithms derived from this data.

FTC offers $25,000 prize for detecting AI-enabled voice cloning
2024-01-04 14:30

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has started accepting submissions for its Voice Cloning Challenge, a public competition with a $25,000 top prize for ideas that protect consumers from the danger of AI-enabled voice cloning for fraudulent activity. AI can be used to clone someone's voice by analyzing an audio clip of the target speaking to extract unique vocal characteristics and then using the training data to generate new speech.

FTC’s Voice Cloning Challenge
2023-11-16 18:46

The Federal Trade Commission is running a competition “to foster breakthrough ideas on preventing, monitoring, and evaluating malicious voice cloning.”