Author: Tyler King

Pretty much every aspect of your life generates data that is valuable to someone. What coffee shops do you pass on your way to work? Your shopping habits, your income, etc. All of these can be used for targeted advertisements or nefarious acts. Controlling how your data is used is imperative for protecting yourself, not just online but in general. While you do have some control over how your data is used or collected, in many instances, handing over some of your personal data is just a cost of doing business with an organization. With that being said, you have…

Data Privacy seems to be a straightforward topic, but in reality, many don’t fully understand what it is and how important it can be. In the modern day, everyone has data associated with them scattered across different organizations. Whether that be government organizations, service providers, retailers, etc. This data varies in its sensitivity; for example, your name is not as sensitive as your social security number, but when different aspects of your data are collected and used together, they can be very sensitive. With just a name and address, bad actors can find ways to scam you or those around…

2024 has seen an extensive array of critical events in the areas of Privacy and Cybersecurity. These events have highlighted some of the shortcomings in the industry. Never before has the threat landscape for Cybersecurity and Privacy been so densely packed with highly effective and, in some cases, unintentionally dangerous actors. One such event, the bad Crowdstrike update, crashed nearly 8 million computers, forcing the aviation industry, among others, to a grinding halt. Events like these highlight the need for proper risk management for third-party vendors. Vendors with access to information or hardware across an organization pose an inherent risk…

This year, Data Privacy Week is January 27th -31st. Data Privacy Week is a period to reflect and learn about the ways in which you and your organization can protect your data. The theme of this year’s Data Privacy Week is “Taking control of your data.” This means controlling who can access your data and how they use it. Achieving this is no small feat. During this Data Privacy Week, this blog will cover some of the ways in which you can protect your data.   For more information about Data Privacy Week, visit the National Cybersecurity Alliance website. #DataPrivacyWeek

Google has released experimental software that can integrate AI with users’ TXT and PDF files uploaded to their Google Drives. NotebookLM can answer questions about the documents and even create a podcast with two AI hosts discussing the uploaded sources. This feature may seem like a novelty at the moment, but it highlights the incredible advancements occurring in the AI-sphere. Organizations can take advantage of these advancements by acquiring tools to better help understand complex documents, like vendor contracts and IT policies. These tools may also be able to break down complex cybersecurity and privacy topics and explain them in…

After CrowdStrike’s faulty update caused millions of computers to become stuck in a “boot loop,” many organizations found themselves wondering how one single vendor could halt their entire operation. This incident, while causing millions of dollars in lost revenue among other intangibles, such as losses in reputation, did come with an upside. Organizations can now clearly see how their procurement processes can significantly impact their ability to operate in the future. While this incident seemed highly improbable during the procurement process, it did happen. Without a robust business continuity plan, organizations were paralyzed until CrowdStrike could solve the issue. Organizations…

Recently, there has been an uptick in the theft of Zoom user information. This information can be used for multiple nefarious purposes, such as unauthorized access to premium Zoom user accounts, harvesting usernames and passwords that users may use on other accounts, selling data to third parties, etc. Each of these reasons can pose a risk to organizations and their employees.  Organizations must understand that all digital tools pose a risk to their organization. Therefore, organizations must maintain awareness of these threats and mitigate them accordingly.   Full Article

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, an “A.I.” demonstration area was constructed to get children involved and show what sports they may excel at based on their performance in certain physical activities. While this is a creative use case for A.I., it exposes a flaw in how companies and organizations attempt to “sell” A.I. to the general public. In an age where a CEO simply mentioning the word A.I. in shareholder meetings can cause a stock price to rocket upward, there is a general lack of understanding of what Artificial Intelligence can do and how it can affect organizations. Like all…

As AI becomes a more significant part of the technological landscape, organizations require more data to train their models. Many tools, such as chat-bots, rely on Large Language Models (LLMs), which require immense text repositories to train. The question then arises, where can organizations find large amounts of text to train their models? Some organizations have looked to their users as a means of acquiring large quantities of quality text data. Meta Platforms, Inc., finds itself amongst these organizations. Meta will use users’ Instagram and Facebook posts to supply training text data to its models. Though this may seem benign…

The online tutoring service Tutor.com has come under scrutiny due to its ownership being based in China. The U.S. Senate is investigating the company and looking to ban any agreement between it and federally funded schools. The significant risk when doing business with companies based in China comes from the CCP’s privacy regulations that mandate companies to turn over all foreign and domestic user data if the Party asks. The company can turn over U.S. citizens’ data to another nation’s government. This issue is similar to that of TikTok; hence, the app is banned on all U.S. government-owned devices. Higher…