Security News

Judge Approves $650M Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Settlement
2021-02-27 20:05

A federal judge on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users. U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015.

How stalkerware can threaten your safety and privacy, and how to avoid it
2021-02-26 17:56

With a stalkerware app on your phone, another person can spy on your activities and view your personal information, Kaspersky says. A report released Friday by Kaspersky explains how stalkerware works and how you can protect yourself against it.

Security, Privacy Issues Found in Tens of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps
2021-02-26 15:40

An analysis of 40 COVID-19 contact tracing applications for Android has led to the discovery of numerous security and privacy issues, according to a new research paper. Contact tracing applications have been created to help authorities automate the process of identifying those who have been in close contact with infected individuals.

TikTok owner ByteDance to pay $92M in US privacy Settlement
2021-02-26 11:44

TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has agreed to pay $92 million in a settlement to U.S. users who are part of a class-action lawsuit alleging that the video-sharing app failed to get their consent to collect data in violation of a strict Illinois privacy law. The federal lawsuit alleged that TikTok broke the Illinois biometric privacy law, which allows suits against companies that harvest consumer data without consent, including via facial and fingerprint scanning.

Closing the data divide: How to create harmony among data scientists and privacy advocates
2021-02-26 06:25

Balancing data privacy within an organization is no easy task, particularly for data scientists who need quick access to data, and security and governance teams whose job it is to protect it. In typical cloud data architectures, there is no magic button for IT or data architects to gain instant access to the different data sets that are created by users across the enterprise and often distributed across different cloud services.

Users largely unaware of the privacy implications of location tracking
2021-02-25 04:00

Through the app employed in the study researchers were able to identify which kind of personal information the app extracted and its privacy sensitivity according to users. "Users are largely unaware of the privacy implications of some permissions they grant to apps and services, in particular when it comes to location tracking information", explains Musolesi.

What's CNAME of your game? This DNS-based tracking defies your browser privacy defenses
2021-02-24 06:11

Boffins based in Belgium have found that a DNS-based technique for bypassing defenses against online tracking has become increasingly common and represents a growing threat to both privacy and security. In a research paper to be presented in July at the 21st Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, KU Leuven-affiliated researchers Yana Dimova, Gunes Acar, Wouter Joosen, and Tom Van Goethem, and privacy consultant Lukasz Olejnik, delve into increasing adoption of CNAME-based tracking, which abuses DNS records to erase the distinction between first-party and third-party contexts.

Firefox 86 gets a privacy boost with Total Cookie Protection
2021-02-23 15:12

Mozilla Firefox 86 was released today with Total Cookie Protection, a new privacy feature that prevents web trackers from keeping tabs on your activity while browsing the web. With the release of Firefox 86, all other Firefox development branches have also moved up a version bringing Firefox Beta to version 87, and the Nightly builds to version 88.

Chief Legal Officers face mounting compliance, privacy and cybersecurity obligations
2021-02-23 06:30

Thirteen years, one institutional investor and two acquisitions later, it offers a unified platform that helps general counsel and chief legal officers manage challenges related to e-discovery, data privacy compliance obligations, Data Subject Access Rights, digital forensic investigation and so on. Legal plays a critical role in ensuring that all compliance obligations are met, and overall risk to the organization is mitigated.

Privitar helps orgs maximize sensitive data value by addressing gaps in their privacy strategies
2021-02-23 01:45

Privitar released the latest version of the Privitar Data Privacy Platform which includes enhanced HIPAA compliance-focused features, new "Fast start" rules packs designed to enable first time users to get their data privacy initiatives up and running quickly, and expanded multi language support to enable the masking and unmasking of data in more than 60 languages. "Privitar is committed to helping organizations worldwide maximize the value of their sensitive data by addressing gaps in their privacy strategies," said Nico Dard, Director of Product Management at Privitar.