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People are becoming more aware of the need to protect their data online, not just because of the rate of cybercriminal activity, but also because large organizations are frequently being careless with the data they hold.

A new survey of 1,000 people from OpenVPN reveals that four out of five people are expecting Facebook to face at least one more data privacy issue in the next year. In addition 71 percent say recent scandals have somewhat or severely negatively affected their view on Facebook, while 37 percent trust tech giants less now because they don’t think the companies have properly addressed the data privacy problems.

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With GDPR in effect and privacy regulations being planned in other parts of the world, many organizations are looking at their database management to ensure stored data is complaint and doesn’t threaten the business.

For Oracle users, Quest Software is launching its Toad for Oracle -- Sensitive Data Protection (SDP) Module. This allows database admins to to detect and receive notification of personally identifiable information (PII) data residing in databases, select encryption and redaction options immediately after detection, and perform ongoing monitoring

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A new study from Harris Poll, commissioned by Google shows that while more people than ever are using the internet -- with 1.4 billion expected to be online by 2022 -- there's a gap between perception and reality in regard to online safety.

In the study 55 percent of Americans aged 16 or over gave themselves an A or B in online safety and security, but the results don't back this up. 70 percent wrongly identified what a safe URL should look like and 97 percent got at least one question wrong on a basic six-question security test.

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Intel yesterday disclosed a new group of Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) hardware vulnerabilities that affect its CPUs.

Rogue In-Flight Data Load (RIDL), Fallout, and ZombieLoad speculative execution attacks are related to Spectre and Meltdown which were discovered last year, and allow attackers to leak in-flight data from CPU-internal buffers (Line Fill Buffers, Load Ports, Store Buffers), including data never stored in CPU caches.

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For most consumers, Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbit/s) is more than enough. After all, they likely only use a hardwired network connection when accessing the internet, which typically won't even fully saturate the connection. Hell, many don't even do that -- some households strictly have Wi-Fi devices, with the only use of a cable being the connection from their router to the modem.

Some enthusiasts and business users don't only use Ethernet for getting on the internet -- they may have high-speed internal networks where they are moving files between various hardwired computers and network-attached storage devices. And sometimes Gigabit speeds wont cut it. These folks may opt for 2.5GBASE-T (2.5Gbit/s), 5GBASE-T (5Gbit/s), or even 10GBASE-T (10Gbit/s) networks.

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Enterprise cloud adoption has largely been driven by developers eager to take advantage of its agility. These developers are often moving very quickly and are under pressure to bring new products to market that provide competitive advantages. The speed of development combined with a lack of cloud security expertise often results in engineers and developers bypassing certain security and compliance policies. The result is a chaotic, "Wild, Wild West" cloud environment.

Alongside innovative apps and services, a common byproduct of this "free for all" mentality is data breaches, thanks to misconfigurations and other security glitches. This article shares advice on how organizations can empower their developers and engineers by providing a safe framework within which to operate, so they can stay agile and innovative, without inadvertently compromising security.

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The combination of technology and mental health can often have negative connotations. There is plenty of media attention surrounding the negative impact the former can have on the latter. In fact, there is research identifying that social media and too much screen time can increase the risk of depression and anxiety, which can lead to hampered sleep and increased stress levels. A recipe for disaster?

Looking at the other side of the coin, technology can also work to improve mental health and stress levels. In recent years, technology has brought about hugely beneficial health apps like Headspace, Calm and Stop, Breathe & Think. This has provided people with a way to help manage their own mental health conditions on a daily basis, such as anxiety and depression. Businesses can also employ different technologies to help address workplace stress. Together, let’s take a deeper look at that below…

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Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP back into 2014, but took the 'highly unusual' step of releasing a patch for the ancient OS two years ago in a bid to fightback against the WannaCry ransomware, and then included XP in that June’s Patch Tuesday updates.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that that would be the very last time Microsoft patched XP, but no. The software giant has included Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (also no longer supported) in today’s Patch Tuesday fixes.

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Everyone knows Google tracks its users. When you use a "free" service, such as the many the search giant offers, you essentially end up being the product. In other words, your personal data is the true cost. Unfortunately, Google is not the only company spying on its users. Microsoft is also guilty of this, especially with its overreaching telemetry in Windows 10.

That isn't Microsoft's only product that is anti-privacy, however. The company is now trying to spy with Office, and as you can imagine, its Bing search engine is tracking user activity too. Today, the Windows-maker openly brags about spying on your recent search activity by announcing a new "feature" for Bing Maps Autosuggest.

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True to form, the launch of the latest OnePlus handsets have been preceded by numerous leaks, rumors and teasers. As such, today's launch of the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro contained few surprises, but the phones are now here and the launch confirms and clarifies many details.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is at the top of the range. Boasting a 90Hz QHD+ Display, Snapdragon 855 and the option of up to 12GB of RAM. Then, of course, there are the cameras. The controversial pop-up design of the selfie camera isn't going to be to everyone's liking, but the specs of the main shooters are hugely impressive. We've known that this will be the first OnePlus handset to be more directly comparable with the likes of Samsung flagships in terms of price, and this means the OnePlus 7 Pro costs between $699 and $749. For those on more restricted budget, the OnePlus 7 clocks in at slightly lower price.

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By now you’ve heard the news: WhatsApp is currently rolling out an urgent update to all app users to close a major vulnerability that leaves unpatched phones at risk of being targeted by hackers. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and if you plan to stick with the platform, don’t wait for an update notification: access your phone’s app store now to force install the update.

Except maybe now is the time to go one step further: perhaps it’s the perfect opportunity to switch to a different messaging platform. One that’s not owned by one of the major tech companies, is equally -- if not more -- secure, and which works on more than just your phone. Enter stage left, Telegram, and stage right, Signal.

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Historically data has been stored in silos in order to deliver a quick solution. But in the longer term silos can slow down decision making, make modifying systems harder, and hinder compliance with regulations.

One of the ways to break down barriers between silos is to allow data to be freely shared between them and open source has a big part to play in this. We spoke to Mandy Chessell, distinguished engineer at IBM Cognitive Applications, and recently elected leader of the Technical Steering Committee of the ODPi, to learn more.

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A new study finds that 46 percent of organizations which store customer personally identifiable information (PII) in the cloud are considering moving it back on premises due to data security concerns.

The research from information security software company Netwrix also shows that of the 50 percent of organizations that store customer data in the cloud, 39 percent had security incidents in the past year and more than 50 percent of those couldn’t diagnose the problem.

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As technology becomes increasingly complex and more devices are connected to the IoT, so the volume and complexity of field service requests increases too.

To help deal with this, automation company Zinier is launching its new Intelligent Service Automation and Control (ISAC) platform, an AI-driven solution enabling field service organizations to operate more efficiently.

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Social media services are hardly regarded as bastions of privacy, and the latest slip-up by Twitter goes some way to showing why. Twitter has revealed that it "may have accidentally collected location data" about users, that this data was shared with one of its "trusted partners".

Twitter blames the "inadvertent" data collection on a bug, and says that the issue affects some iOS users. It also says that precise location data was not collected or shared, but zip code or city-level only.

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