New Years Resolutions in Personal Data Security
December 22, 2015
The article on ITProPortal titled What Did We Learn in Records Management in 2016 and What Lies Ahead for 2016? delves into the unlearnt lessons in data security. The article begins with a look back over major data breaches, including Ashley Madison, JP Morgan et al, and Vtech and gathers from them the trend of personal information being targeted by hackers. The article reports,
“A Crown Records Management Survey earlier in 2015 revealed two-thirds of people interviewed – all of them IT decision makers at UK companies with more than 200 employees – admitted losing important data… human error is continuing to put that information at risk as businesses fail to protect it properly…but there is legislation on the horizon that could prompt change – and a greater public awareness of data protection issues could also drive the agenda.”
The article also makes a few predictions about the upcoming developments in our approach to data protection. Among them includes the passage of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) and the resulting affect on businesses. In terms of apps, the article suggests that more people might start asking questions about the information required to use certain apps (especially when the data they request is completely irrelevant to the functions of the app.) Generally optimistic, these developments will only occur of people and businesses and governments take data breaches and privacy more seriously.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 22, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Banks Turn to Blockchain Technology
November 9, 2015
Cryptocurrency has come a long way, and now big banks are taking the technology behind Bitcoin very seriously, we learn in “Nine of the World’s Biggest Banks Form Blockchain Partnership” at Re/code. Led by financial technology firm R3, banks are signing on to apply blockchain tech to the financial markets. A few of the banks involved so far include Goldman Sacks, Barclays, JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The article notes:
“The blockchain works as a huge, decentralized ledger of every bitcoin transaction ever made that is verified and shared by a global network of computers and therefore is virtually tamper-proof. The Bank of England has a team dedicated to it and calls it a ‘key technological innovation.’ The data that can be secured using the technology is not restricted to bitcoin transactions. Two parties could use it to exchange any other information, within minutes and with no need for a third party to verify it. [R3 CEO David] Rutter said the initial focus would be to agree on an underlying architecture, but it had not yet been decided whether that would be underpinned by bitcoin’s blockchain or another one, such as one being built by Ethereum, which offers more features than the original bitcoin technology.”
Rutter did mention he expects this tech to be used post-trade, not directly in exchange or OTC trading, at least not soon. It is hoped the use of blockchain technology will increase security while reducing security and errors.
Cynthia Murrell, November 9, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
