In France, anything is possible. Like getting tossed in jail for posting your children’s photos on Facebook.

Yes indeed, it’s true. People in France can be put behind bars for putting their kids’ pictures on Facebook. Or, they may face heavy fines. This is because the French authorities deem posting kids’ photos online threatens their security.

Parents are being warned about the consequences of this violation. The authorities believe that posting images of one’s kids online can lead to some pretty

By Jodie Paula Cohen, Producer, Open Data in Finance, www.open-data-finance.com

When I first started following the open data initiative, my banking contacts described it as “a major shift in the established business model of the financial services industry”; while alternative lenders and fintech companies spoke passionately about the power of an open API framework to “change everything about the way that we bank and operate our finances.”

This article condenses an intensive research process into t

Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) investigated Dwolla, an e-commerce and online-payment company. It found Dwolla guilty of risk management negligence regarding data security practices.

The investigation has some significant implications. Before we take a deeper look, here are a few key takeaways:

1. Dwolla payed a civil penalty of $100,000, despite the fact that it did not suffer a data breach. This indicates “a broader trend among regulators to change the focus of enforceme

Last year, says the security firm Gemalto, over 700 million records were breached. Or, to put it another way, this translates to two million stolen or lost records every day.

2015 Breach Level Report

• 1,673 hacking incidents
• 398 were triggered from the inside of the attacked company: employees and even IT staff who were tricked (social engineering) by hackers into clicking on malicious links or attachments
• Government agencies suffered the greatest data leaks.
• Following that were nation states and heal

Tax Havens • Explained With Maps

Apr 19, 2016

Source:

http://explainedwithmaps.com/tax-havens/

Tax havens play an important role in the globalization of capital markets but also threaten their stability and structure. What are the properties of tax havens? When began tax evasion? What do fiscal paradises offer? How profit private persons, companies and the organized crime from tax havens?

There are many names for the same areas: offshore havens, fiscal paradises or tax havens. In a first list from th

What’s it gonna take for companies to crack down on their cybersecurity? What’s holding them back? Why do we keep hearing about one company data breach after another?

Well, there’s just not enough IT talent going around. The irony is that most company higher-ups admit that cybersecurity is very important and can even name specific situations that could compromise security, such as

having multiple vendors vs. only a single vendor; not having quality-level encryption in place; allowing employees to

“I say the 21st century is a terrible time to be a control freak”

I recently read this Knowledge @Wharton interview “‘Industries of the Future’: Alec Ross Unveils the Winners”. At the end of the interview Ross says, “I say the 21st century is a terrible time to be a control freak. One of the key things is to give up on the kind of control that you’re most comfortable with and begin to understand that a lot of the ground shifting under your feet is going to shift whether you like it or not and to

Well, we certainly can’t blame Dennis Nicholl for breaking the law. Frankly, had I been nearby him when he did it, I would have kept silent and let him continue breaking the law—unless, of course, I was engaged in some loud, planet-moving discussion with a world leader.

Nicholl, 63, was recently on a Chicago subway train. He brought with him a cell phone jammer. Unfortunately for Nicholl that day, Keegan Goudie was on the same train. Goudie is a blogger, noticed the infraction and began blogging

Stop clicking on e-mails about your package delivery! Scam, scam, scam! Look, it’s simple:

• Scammers are also pretending to be from the DHL and FedEx shipping companies, not just UPS.
• Crooks know that at any given time, thousands and thousands of U.S. people are waiting for a package delivery.
• So these cyber thieves send out mass e-mails by the millions, knowing that they will reach a lot of people who are expecting a package.
• The subject line of these e-mails says something about “your delivery” or

The Risk Americas series returns to NYC next month for the 5th Annual Risk and Regulation Convention set to take place on May 3-4, 2016 at the Hilton Midtown. Risk Americas traditionally brings together senior financial risk and regulation professionals from around the globe to address critical challenges within financial risk management. Following extensive research conducted by the Center for Financial Professionals, the Risk Americas 2016 agenda now features CROs from AQR Capital, Lazard Grou

Apparently there are people who take pictures of their airplane boarding pass…and post it online. I’m dead serious. I’ve heard of toddlers getting excited over scraps of paper, but full-grown adults posting images of their boarding pass online? Don’t get me started.

Let’s just only say that this is incredulously absurd. Like, who cares about your bleepity bleep boarding pass, right? OK, you got bumped up to First class. SAVE IT. Well wait a minute. Fraudsters care.

Fraudsters also care about the b

Mahatma Gandhi was asked,

The Identity Protection PIN tool on the IRS.gov site has been temporarily suspended—because it was recently hacked into. The tool provides retrieval of forgotten or lost IP PINs to users who want an extra layer of protection against identity theft.

But some users who received the IP PINs recently via the online tool learned that a thief had used their IP PIN to file tax returns in their name.

So now, for the moment, you cannot use the IRS’s online function to retrieve your IP PIN; meanwhile, the I

The Panama Papers: Why Iceland?

Written by:

Gearoid O Colmain

http://www.gearoidocolmain.org

The most unusual aspect of this week’s ‘Panama Papers’ scandal was the appearance of the Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson alongside the West’s favourite ‘bad guys’, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. 

Iceland rarely makes world headlines and for most people this was probably the first time they had ever seen the country’s Prime Minister. There is a goo

Whatever the appeal of sexting is to kids (attention), it’s definitely there, and won’t be going away too soon. Of all the things that teens can do in their daily lives, why spend time sexting?

• To feel cool
• To get a crush’s attention
• To make a relationship seem more serious
• To harass the recipient
• Peer pressure
• ATTENTION, SHOCK, AWE, SEX.

Before the advent of sexting, teens talked sex and even shared racy photos with each other. But the old-fashioned way meant that the only viewers were the people with

Joining the Dots: Why the Establishment Hates Donald Trump

By:

Prof. John McMurtry

Global Research, April 05, 2016

On the face of it, Trump is Reagan on steroids. His towering size, his nativist US supremacism, his down-home talk, and  his reality-show confidence make him ideal for the role of bullying and big lies from the oval office.

He is America come to meet itself in larger-than-life image to rejuvenate it as its pride slips away in third-world conditions and a multi-polar world.  

While Trump’

Risk Management's 3 Basic Steps

In order to be effective, risk management must involve three phases:

1. Risk identification & assessment
2. Mitigation design & implementation
3. Active monitoring of mitigation activities

If an organization misses any of these steps or does not directly link them to one another, it is not fully managing risk. Here’s what can happen if a step isn’t fully executed:

1. Improper risk identification often results from identifying a risk’s symptom instead of its root cause. When this ha

We’re told to change our passwords often to minimize getting hacked. Now we’re told this is a bad thing.

But not for any inherent techy reason. It’s because frequent password changing makes many people lower their guard when it comes to creating new passwords.

They get lax and end up with passwords like Bear1, Crazy4uand GetHigh1978. Or, they often only minimally change the password, such as going from Hotbaby!! to Babyhot!!.

Believe it or not, despite an infinite number of permutations involving 2

Last Blog I challenged you on what you had to say when the chief last set direction for your organisation, division or business unit. Whether or not you had plenty of input on the direction, you are sure to have impact on how the organisation gets there.

One of the classic misses by key decision makers is that one big, powerful decision can become unfurled by the many decisions that must follow. Think about it. “We are going to vertically integrate to double our net profit in the automotive coati