Facebook’s largest security breach in history
The biggest news of September came right in the end of the month. Facebook announced that an attack on its computer network had exposed personal information of almost 50 million users. The New York Times reported it was the largest breach in the company’s history. The attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted View As, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice-president of product management, admitted their investigation is still in the early stages. Besides fixing it and informing law enforcement, the company reseted the access tokens of the affected users and of another 40 million accounts that have been subjected to the feature during the last year. Facebook also decided to turn off View As for now. As a result, the company could face a fine of up to US$1.63 billion in Europe, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Building upon that, The New York Times listed three basic tips for securing your account: do a device audit, change your password, and turn on the two-factor authentication security feature. And TechCrunch reminded that Facebook cannot rule out that attackers may have also accessed Instagram accounts linked through Facebook Login – even though the company has no evidence of this kind of activity yet.
You can learn more about your rights and how to protect your information online by accessing Digital Tattoo‘s Protect session.
Google admits mistakes on privacy before U.S. Senate’s committee
In September, representatives of Apple, Amazon, Google, Twitter, AT&T and Charter, attended a session of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee to answer questions about privacy. Google’s statement confirmed what Reuters had revealed before: the company admitted it has made mistakes on privacy issues. Google’s chief privacy officer Keith Enright said that they have learned from these mistakes and improved their privacy program. However, lawmakers have questioned that, according to TechCrunch. They said that this position contrasts with recent reports of Google’s return to China, which has been widely denounced by human rights groups. Those groups believe that the development of a China-focused search engine called Dragonfly would violate freedom of expression and privacy rights of users – the tool would block certain keywords to fall in line with the country’s censorship rules.
Additionally, TechCrunch reports that the tech giants called on lawmakers to introduce a new U.S. federal privacy legislation despite past attempts to push back against new state regulations. It seems that the companies have conceded that new privacy rules are inevitable, and it’s better to sit at the table to influence it.
Earlier this year, we wrote about how tech companies are updating their privacy policies for their benefit.
Infection of NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware found in 45 countries
An investigation from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab found suspected infections of the spyware Pegasus in 45 countries, including Canada. Pegasus is a commercial spyware manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group under the justification of assisting in law enforcement or national security investigations. Citizen Lab’s director, prof. Ronald Deibert, explained that those technologies take control of a target’s device when clicking on infected links or attachments. “Once in control, an operator can secretly monitor emails and chats, even those that are protected with encryption, track movements and locations, and record audio and video,” he wrote in his website. According to Deibert, their investigation revealed that government clients use this technology not just to monitor criminals or terrorists, but activists, journalists, and other members of civil society.
Creative Commons released updates on search tool
Creative Commons announced updates on their working beta of the CC Search product. The tool integrates access to more than 10 million images across 13 content provider, including Flickr, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Behance. This is an useful resource for those searching for CC licensed media to include in their work. The release comes with a new design, which allows users to search by category, see popular images, and search more accurately across a wide range of content. It also contains a new feature that allows AI image tags generated from the image classification software Clarifai. And if you want to know more about CC license, Digital Tattoo has some resources dedicated to it.
And it’s still time to read our blog posts for September:
In the News: Banks Using Biometric Data to Increase Online Security
In The News: US Prosecutor Obliges Suspect to Surrender Passcode
New on the Podcast: An Interview with the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C., Michael McEvoy
Social Media and the Environment
https://dt2019.sites.olt.ubc.ca/2018/09/24/social-media-and-the-environment/
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