Consumer Security

Smart home and consumer IoT solutions promise significant opportunities for the insurance industry to reduce costs, alleviate risks, deepen customer engagement, and create new services and revenue streams. There are many barriers ahead, but given the tremendous upside, insurance companies have begun...

A flaw in certain electronic hotel door locks could allow hackers to access guest rooms and other secure locations at millions of properties around the world, F-Secure researchers have discovered.

Users of Google's Gmail have been receiving spam that appears to have been sent from their own accounts. Google said it was aware of a spam campaign impacting a "small subset of Gmail users" and was taking measures to protect against it. The attackers used forged email headers to make it appear that...

We should start discussing what's beyond CRM. I chose the word "beyond" advisedly. CRM is far from dead or even in decline, so "after" would be completely incorrect. However, CRM already has changed so much that it may be time to rethink it. Also, many of the tangential technologies that have turboc...

An alarming number of major U.S. retailers, industrial firms, government agencies and other organizations have been hit in a recent wave of cyberbreaches that may signal increasing vulnerability for consumers and businesses alike. Cyberthieves have used a variety of methods to infiltrate corporate c...

Mobile device makers and telecom service providers need to make significant privacy protection improvements for their customers, according to a recent report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The report could become the basis for agency enforcement actions -- not only for smartphones, but als...

The DoJ has charged nine Iranian nationals for engaging in a massive phishing campaign on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The allegations include the theft of $3.4 billion in research and intellectual property from 320 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, as well as from 47 f...

Amazon has agreed to buy smart doorbell maker Ring for $1 billion, the companies have disclosed. Ring users already could use the Echo Show to see and hear visitors at the front door. The deal means Ring will be able to further its "mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods by providing effective yet...

As beneficial as artificial intelligence can be, it has its dark side, too. That dark side is the focus of a 100-page report a group of technology, academic and public interest organizations jointly released. AI will be used by threat actors to expand the scale and efficiency of their attacks, the r...

Microsoft has announced a plan to use blockchain technology to develop decentralized identities, or DIDs, supported by Microsoft Authenticator. Microsoft formally joined the ID2020 Alliance last month as a founding member. The Alliance aims to develop a blockchain-based identity system for vulnerabl...

Microsoft on Wednesday announced agreements to integrate threat detection products from Bitdefender, Lookout and Ziften into Windows Defender, extending security to macOS, iOS, Linux and Android devices. No additional infrastructure will be required, Microsoft said. Once the integration is set, new ...

At least 145 million Americans -- half the United States population -- were impacted by a data breach at Equifax that netted thieves personal information such as names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security Numbers and driver's license numbers. That pales in comparison to the earlier Yahoo breaches...

Amazon on Wednesday announced a new service that will allow Prime members to receive in-home delivery of packages with the help of high-tech smart locks that allow drivers to open their front doors. Amazon Key will launch officially on Nov. 8 in 37 U.S. cities and surrounding communities, with addit...

Google on Monday rolled out an online payment service that's designed to accelerate the online checkout process. While the new offering isn't quite Amazon One-Click, it will eliminate many of the annoying steps that can slow down the online purchase process and often result in abandoned shopping car...