"Hackers breached the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that coordinates unique web addresses all across the world, but luckily didn't hit the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, an important leg that keeps the Internet running smoothly.
Attackers used "spear fishing" to break into the system in late November, according to a post on ICANN's website this week. Staffers received email messages that appeared to be coming from ICANN's own domain; several ICANN staffers' emails were compromised."
"The hackers who stole 4.5 million patient records from an American hospital network might have exploited the infamous Heartbleed bug to carry out the hack - the first time the bug has been reported to be at the center of a high-profile breach."
"Three software flaws in Facebook's systems allowed hackers to break into user accounts, including those of the top executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, according to two people familiar with the investigation but not allowed to discuss it publicly. Once in, the attackers could have gained access to apps like Spotify, Instagram and hundreds of others that give users a way to log into their systems through Facebook."
"Data collection is a prerequisite to delivering targeted ads, so their use will inherently stir up privacy concerns. Ad companies are incentivized to collect and share as much data as they can, with safeguarding this information only a secondary issue at best. Breaches are a concern largely because of the potential fallout to a company's brand."
"L&M used a credential stuffing attack: using email addresses gleaned from massive breaches to gain access by repeatedly trying different email/password combinations."
"If that data is collected, does the child have a right to get it back? If that data is collected from very early childhood and does not belong to the child, does it make the child extra vulnerable because his or her choices and patterns of behaviour could be known to anyone who purchases the data, for example, companies or political campaigns.
Depending on the privacy laws of the state in which the toys are being used, if the data is collected and kept, it breaches Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - the right to privacy. (Though, of course, arguably this is something parents routinely do by posting pictures of their children on Facebook). "
"A school in Poland has been fined €4,600 ($5,200) for breaching Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) after it was found to be processing students' fingerprint data to verify whether they had paid for school lunch. The news comes as biometric data harnessing programs around the world spark significant privacy concerns."
"Ministers have paused a planned update to the NHS Covid-19 app after Apple and Google blocked it from their stores over privacy violations.
The app, which aids contact tracing in England and Wales, uses technology built by the Silicon Valley companies to track interactions between users with their bluetooth signals and venue "check-ins"."
"Explained by "Anna", a desk-sitting avatar complete with an artificial voice, the video introduces TP Observer as "a risk-mitigation tool that monitors and tracks real time employee behaviour, and detects any violations to pre-set business rules".
Anna explains that this means home workers will have an AI-enabled webcam added to their computers that recognises their face, tags their location and scans for "breaches" of rules at random points during a shift."
""Even if the data is old, it's never really old because it will always be useful for data brokers," he said. "It helps them correlate related information that is new and dump them into these profiles, which they sell online for as little as 99 cents.""
"Costco customers at four of the retailer's Chicago-area warehouses may have had their payment information compromised after employees discovered five card-skimming devices during routine PIN pad inspections at the end of August.
"We promptly removed the skimmers, notified law enforcement, and engaged a forensics firm to analyze the devices," A Costco spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement. "It appears that these skimmers had the ability to capture information on the magnetic stripe of a payment card, including name, card number, expiration date, and CVV.""
"Two authors have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, claiming that the organisation breached copyright law by "training" its model on novels without the permission of authors.
Mona Awad, whose books include Bunny and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World, filed the class action complaint to a San Francisco federal court last week."
"Prisma Labs has already gotten into trouble for accidentally generating nude and cartoonishly sexualised images - including those of children - despite a "no nudes" and "adults only" policy.
Prisma Lab's CEO and co-founder Andrey Usoltsev told TechCrunch this behaviour only happened if the AI was intentionally provoked to create this type of content - which represents a breach of terms against its use.
"If an individual is determined to engage in harmful behavior, any tool would have the potential to become a weapon," he said."
"Moves to ban live "Big Brother" real time facial recognition technology from being deployed across the streets of the EU or by border officials will be tested in a key vote at the European parliament on Thursday.
The amendment is part of a package of proposals for the world's first artificial intelligence laws, which could result in firms being fined up to €10m (£8.7m) or removed from trading within the EU for breaches of the rules."
"As the significant number of cybersecurity incidents and data breaches have shown, there is no question that we urgently need concerted action and clear policy at the government level. However, recognising that privacy and cybersecurity can be mutually reinforcing is key. "