Checklist 170: A Great Big List + Home Insecurity

On this week’s Checklist, we’ll take a look at someone else’s checklist of security tips, plus we’ll talk about what happens when companies that don’t specialize in security decide to get into the security business.

Cybersecurity New Year’s Resolution #3: Test your phishing awareness

By testing your knowledge of the full spectrum of phishing tactics out there — by seeing what you know…and what you don’t — you’ll be better equipped to deal with even the sneakiest of phishing attempts.

The California Consumer Privacy Act

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is legislation designed to protect the digital privacy and consumer rights of residents of the State of California.

Why you should update Firefox right now, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued an alert about a “critical vulnerability” affecting Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The DHS has advised all Firefox users to update their browser software immediately.

In this short article, we’ll explain what the vulnerability is, help you parse the language used in the security advisory, tell you who is affected, and let you know how to get your updates and stay safe.

What is the vulnerability?

According to the Mozilla security advisory, the vulnerability was due to a flaw in the “IonMonkey JIT compiler”, which could “lead …

Checklist 169: New Year, New Rules!

It’s the first Checklist of 2020, and we’re starting things off with some important privacy news from the great state of California. We’ll also discuss (another) potential issue with Amazon’s Ring doorbell surveillance camera. And finally, we’ll leave you with a decidedly low-tech security tip that you’ll want to remember all year long!

Cybersecurity New Year’s Resolution #2: Turn on 2FA

Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, is one of the best cybersecurity tools available to you. The main benefit of two-factor authentication is that it adds another layer of protection to your accounts and services, above and beyond passwords

RCS chat: a better SMS for Android?

Android has started rolling out Rich Communication Services (RCS) chat features to users of its Messages app, touting this as a better, more up-to-date successor to traditional SMS texting. However, there is still some confusion about what RCS is…

Is your bank a privacy threat?

Many people are aware that large tech companies like Facebook and Google collect and monetize user data . But privacy advocates are now sounding the alarm about the growing trend of consumer banks and credit card companies doing the same thing.

Best of the Checklist: January 2nd, 2019

The Checklist is taking a little holiday break this week, but we’ll be back on the 9th of January with a new podcast. Until then, we’d like to invite you to check out these classic Checklists you might have missed, especially as they touch on topics that have been in the news of late! 

In what follows, we’ll let you know what’s been going on in the world of cybersecurity for the past week, and then we’ll point you to a Checklist where you can learn more.

This Best of the Checklist …

Cybersecurity in 2019: Top 9 stories that show what the future holds

This year was a big one for cybersecurity news, with plenty of stories worthy of inclusion in a year-end review. We’ll take you through the top stories of 2019 which help us see the shape of things to come.

Apple in 2019: Naughty or Nice?

It’s that time of year again, when Santa makes his list, checks it twice and, well, you know the rest. So in the spirit of the season, we’re going to take a look at some of the top Apple stories of 2019 to see if the company was naughty or nice this year. 

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Checklist 168: It only FEELS like a recap

This week’s Checklist topics may sound familiar, but don’t be fooled! We revisit three stories that we’ve talked about before, but which now have some updates worth discussing (spoiler: it’s not all good news!).

On this week’s Checklist, it’s deja vu all over again:

$20 bucks and a security breach on pump four…revisitedLast week’s Communications Limits…revisitedBad passwords…revisited (again)

$20 on four: the case for paper money

Earlier in the year, we covered a story about gas station monitoring software that had serious vulnerabilities — serious enough to attract the attention of the Department of …