Americans want data privacy and they worry about AI
A new survey of over 1,000 Americans reveals that people are deeply concerned about their personal data, believe their data is priceless, want a national privacy law, and are pessimistic about the rise of AI and personal data.
The study for PrivacyHawk, conducted by Propeller Research, shows 45 percent are very or extremely concerned about their personal data being exploited, breached, or exposed. Over 94 percent are generally concerned. Only 5.7 percent of the US population is not concerned at all about their personal data risk.
40 million individuals exposed in healthcare data breaches
Despite an overall decline in the number of healthcare data breaches, the first half of this year has seen a record number of individuals have their information exposed.
The latest Healthcare Data Cyber Breach Report from security-as-a-service provider Critical Insight shows individual records compromised in data breaches increased by 31 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to the second half of 2022.
74 percent of cloud and web applications with PII are vulnerable to exploits
New research reveals a high proportion of vulnerable public cloud, mobile and web applications exposing sensitive data, including unsecured APIs and personal identifiable information (PII).
The study from CyCognito, based on analysis of 3.5 million assets across its enterprise customer base, finds 74 percent of assets with PII are vulnerable to at least one known major exploit, and one in 10 have at least one easily exploitable issue.
Sensitive data is exposed in over 30 percent of cloud assets
New analysis of more than 13 billion files stored in public cloud environments reveals that more than 30 percent of cloud data assets contain sensitive information.
The study by Dig Security shows personal identifiable information (PII) is the most common sensitive data type that organizations save. In a sample data set of a billion records, more than 10 million social security numbers were found -- the sixth most common type of sensitive information -- followed by almost three million credit card numbers, the seventh most common type.
Employee microchipping could be commonplace by 2030
You've probably had your dog or your cat microchipped, but how would you feel if your employer wanted to microchip you?
A survey of 5,000 senior decision makers in the finance sector reveals that 47 percent of leaders believe employee microchips and other human technology implants to be in workplace use by 2030.
The importance of data privacy in healthcare [Q&A]
Data is one of the biggest drivers of innovation in healthcare today. Almost everything in healthcare relies on having access to the right data from developing new drugs and medical equipment to allocating resources.
Making use of this data often requires sharing with other organizations and that presents challenges when it comes to keeping it secure. We spoke to Riddhiman Das, co-founder and CEO at TripleBlind, to learn how healthcare organizations are securing their data while still making it accessible.
Google rolls out privacy tools to make it easier to remove personal information and explicit images from searches
Google has announced the rollout of a series of new and updated privacy tools designed to give users greater control over the removal of information about themselves from search results. A new privacy dashboard will alert users if search results start to include their contact information.
As well as making it easier to request the removal of such personal data, Google is expanding its privacy protections to give people a way to remove personal, explicit images from search results. There are also expanded controls for limiting the appearance of other explicit images in searches.
Employees share more secrets with AI than they would in a bar
A new study of 1,000 office workers across the US and UK shows half of us already use AI tools at work, one-third weekly and 12 percent daily.
But the report from Cybsafe finds 38 percent of users of generative AI in the US admit to sharing data they wouldn't casually reveal in a bar to a friend.
Boost web privacy by installing DuckDuckGo Browser for Windows and Mac
Protecting your precious privacy when browsing gets harder by the year. With this thought in mind, privacy focused search engine DuckDuckGo has decided to dip its toes into the desktop web browser market with the recent launch of DuckDuckGo Browser for Windows Beta, which follows hot on the heels of an earlier Mac release.
This may be DuckDuckGo’s first Windows browser, but it’s an already established option on mobile (iOS and Android) in addition to the existing Mac build. Both desktop versions are built from their operating system’s browser systems, which means the Windows build -- unlike most browsers -- isn’t a simple Chromium port. Instead, it's been built from scratch using the same underlying elements as Microsoft’s Edge browser, namely Microsoft’s Windows WebView2 API on top of the Blink rendering engine.
How do you solve privacy issues with AI? It's all about the blockchain
Data is the lifeblood of artificial intelligence (AI), and the power that AI brings to the business world -- to unearth fresh insights, increase speed and efficiency, and multiply effectiveness -- flows from its ability to analyze and learn from data. The more data AI has to work with, the more reliable its results will be.
Feeding AI’s need for data means collecting it from a wide variety of sources, which has raised concerns about AI gathering, processing, and storing personal data. The fear is that the ocean of data flowing into AI engines is not properly safeguarded.
The Big Brother in your pocket: How a US company secretly tracks and rates half of the world's mobile users
Imagine a hidden system that tracks and scores you based on every phone call you make or take. It might sound like something straight out of a Black Mirror episode and remind you of China's controversial social credit system. But surprisingly, half of the world's mobile phone users are already part of a similar system, and many of them are Europeans, who are supposed to enjoy the strongest privacy protections.
NOYB, a privacy advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit against the US company TeleSign, a Belgian telecom provider BICS, and their mutual parent Proximus. They claim these companies are unauthorizedly profiling billions of phone users to assign them a 'reputation' or 'trust' score.
Brave Browser is ending behind-the-back port scanning attacks
The next major version of Brave Browser, a Chromium-based browser with a focus on privacy, will prevent sites and apps from accessing local resources without user permission.
Most modern browsers allow access to local resources. In fact, many do not differentiate between local and remote resources, and do not include options to block access to local resources.
Avoid Threads if you value your privacy
The arrival of Threads this week saw Meta taking another step into the social arena with its Twitter clone. There have been lots of entirely understandable concerns voiced about Twitter recently, particularly in light of the chaotic impact of Elon Musk, and this has led to swathes of disgruntled and worried users switching allegiances and joining the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon and, now, Threads.
Whether jumping ship, leaving Twitter and signing up for Threads makes sense very much depends on your reason for doing so. If privacy is your main concern, for instance, there is little -- if anything -- to be gained. Coming from the same stables as Facebook, the fact that Threads sucks up personal data should surprise no one, but the sheer volume and range of what it collects is slightly breath-taking.
Microsoft Edge now blocks spam notifications on the sites you visit
Notifications can be useful, but all too often they are used by websites to spam people. To help protect users against such irritations, Microsoft has announced new notification blocking for its Edge browser.
The company says it is aware that website notifications may not only be annoying, but can be misleading or even dangerous. The aim in block spammy notifications is to not only offer protection to users of Microsoft Edge, but also to help them to get the most out of notifications.
Majority of Brits are concerned about their digital identity and take steps to protect it
A new study of over 1,200 members of the UK public shows that 72 percent of respondents say they are concerned about the privacy of their digital identity, while 75 percent are concerned that the mobile apps they have are utilizing data to track their online and, sometimes, offline activity.
Perhaps more significant though is that 81 percent of people have bothered to read the small print and then decided to actively deny the permissions that an app is hoping to be given.
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