Florida city gives in to $600,000 bitcoin ransomware demand

Cybercrime

But there’s no guarantee hackers will actually restore Riviera Beach’s systems.

Riviera Beach, a city in Florida, is set to pay hackers $600,000 in bitcoin with the hope of having its systems restored. Hackers took over the systems several weeks ago, when a police department employee opened a malicious email that allowed them to inject the city’s network with malware. Now the council has voted to pay the ransom in the hopes of getting Riviera Beach’s encrypted records back — even though there’s no actual guarantee the hackers will restore them.

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Android is helping kill passwords on a billion devices

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IT’S MORE IMPORTANT than ever to manage your passwords online, and also harder to keep up with them. That’s a bad combination. So the FIDO Alliance—a consortium that develops open source authentication standards—has pushed to expand its secure login protocols to make seamless logins a reality. Now Android’s on board, which means 1 billion devices can say goodbye to passwords in more digital services than seen before.

On Monday, Google and the FIDO Alliance announced that Android has added certified support for the FIDO2 standard, meaning the vast majority of devices running Android 7 or later will now be able to handle password-less logins in mobile browsers like Chrome. Android already offered secure FIDO login options for mobile apps, where you authenticate using a phone’s fingerprint scanner or with a hardware dongle like a YubiKey. But FIDO2 support will make it possible to use these easy authentication steps for web services in a mobile browser, instead of having the tedious task of typing in your password every time you want to log in to an account. Web developers can now design their sites to interact with Android’s FIDO2 management infrastructure.

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Blockchain trends for 2018

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While the mainstream viability of cryptocurrency remains in question, one of the technologies that has emerged in its wake is primed to do big things.

Blockchain continues to grow in popularity as people across multiple industries find new applications for it. Recently, Deloitte released a report entitled, ‘2018 Global Blockchain Survey’. In it, they explore several relevant, blockchain trends that are worth paying attention to in 2018 and onward.

If you are interested in exploring what blockchain can do for your business or whether your startup idea can benefit from this versatile and secure technology, the prospects are rather promising.

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What do Americans really want from their smart homes?

smart home

Smartphone-enabled, security-minded, and no monthly fees.

Homeowners in the U.S. would prefer a smartphone-enabled, do-it-yourself platform for home automation over a closed, subscription-based system.  They also care a lot more about security and peace of mind than they do about saving on their energy bills.

 

 

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Colorado’s soaring demand for marijuana ushers in weed cottage industry

marijuana industry

Demand outstrips supply in Colorado

Supply can’t keep up with demand in Colorado. Colorado is one of two states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use (the other being Washington), Colorado’s pot industry has ushered in a booming warehouse market–part of a greater cannabis cottage industry.

 

 

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A security expert’s perspective of why the TSA sucks

The TSA Is Supposed to Regulate Itself.

The TSA is a remarkably unpopular bunch of people. Nobody likes going through security at the airport, but you probably figured most of it had a point. All those hours spent in line with other shoeless travelers are a necessary precursor to safe flying. It’s annoying, but at least it wards off terrorism.

 

 

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