FTC Fines Facebook $5B, Adds Limited Oversight on Privacy
Federal regulators have fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations and are instituting new oversight and restrictions on its business. But they are only holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible in a limited fashion.
The fine is the largest the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a tech company, though it won't make much of a dent for a company that had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year.
The Growing Threat of Drones
Drones Are Enabling Various Attacks (Both Cyber and Physical) on Industrial Sites That Historically Were Only Possible in Close Proximity to a Facility or Device
UK environmental activists known as Extinction Rebellion (ER) are threatening to protest the development of a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport by flying drones right to the edge of the airport’s exclusion zone
ER cofounder Gail Bradbrook announced 15 July 2019, “They’ve said, ok, there’s this exclusion zone around Heathrow where you can’t fly drones and we’ve gone, oh, that’s interesting because what we’re about is breaking the rules.”
Equifax to Pay up to $700 Million to Consumers, Authorities Over 2017 Breach
Equifax and U.S. government agencies announced on Monday that the credit reporting agency is prepared to pay up to $700 million to settle charges related to the massive 2017 data breach that impacted roughly 147 million people.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Equifax has agreed to pay at least $575 million, but the amount could be increased to $700 million if necessary. The money will be used to compensate consumers and settle charges brought by the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and 50 states.
US Senator Calls for Investigation into Russia-made FaceApp
The chart-topping Russian-made FaceApp, which allows users to see how they will look as they age, found itself in the eye of a political storm in the US Wednesday, with one senator urging an FBI investigation into its "national security and privacy risks".
A celebrity favorite, the app deploys artificial intelligence to modify users' photos, adding wrinkles or subtracting years from their faces.
Slack Resetting More User Passwords in Response to 2015 Breach
Slack announced on Thursday that it’s resetting passwords for accounts that users have not secured after the data breach suffered by the company back in 2015.
In March 2015, Slack informed users that it had detected unauthorized access to a database storing account information. The compromised database stored usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, phone numbers and Skype IDs. The attackers also injected malicious code designed to capture plaintext passwords as they were entered by users.