this week in getting hacked
Welcome back to ‘This Week in Getting Hacked’—the world’s greatest cybersecurity-related link dump! Each week, we bring you the best news stories from the cybersecurity field, letting you know who’s getting hacked, who’s hacking, what data is leaking, and about what you should take with caution. So strap in, change your password, and let’s find out who’s getting hacked this week!
On to the links…
The Department of Homeland Security is about to start scanning everyone’s face on international flights, because that definitely isn’t a breach of privacy at all. According to the DHS, they won’t be retaining any facial scans of US citizens, but will still collect everyone’s facial scans and then sort out the American ones later on, in a weird Filter>Sort by> US Citizen type thing.
This definitely doesn’t have the potential to backfire in a major way (he says, dripping with sarcasm).
In other government news, President Donald Trump said he had discussed forming a cybersecurity group with Russia, then said it wouldn’t happen, but now Russia is saying they are in talks to get the joint cybersecurity group formed. Just a quick tip: maybe don’t form a group dedicated to cybersecurity with the guys being investigated for hacking our elections? I’m just spitballing here, though.
If you’re wondering how everything is going in our nation’s capital, consider that a security robot throwing itself into a fountain is probably the most apt metaphor.
In case you were concerned about Trump’s cybersecurity record, just know that his hotels were hit by a 3rd credit card data breach in 2 years. Maybe Russia can help with that. The problem is that many hotels still rely on the swipe method for credit cards, and typically don’t have the end-to-end encryption that comes with chip readers on POS systems.
Regardless, a hotel or hospitality service should still be aware that when credit cards are their primary source of transactions, that securing those transactions and that data should be a high priority.
Speaking of hotels (I’m so good at segues), be cautious about using the complimentary hotel Wi-Fi since hackers are using it to steal your data.
“Hi, your data will probably be stolen. Have a nice stay!”