Three Things Businesses Can Do to Protect Data Privacy

In today’s global digital economy, protecting data privacy is a must. With customers all over the world, every company must be able to demonstrate how they are protecting data privacy to earn the trust of their customers, users, partners and employees. It starts with these three things.

1. Be transparent and accountable. Let customers and partners know your commitment. For example, Cisco is committed to helping our customers and partners by protecting and respecting personal data, no matter where it comes from or where it flows. We have established long-standing security, data protection and privacy programs and are committed to comply with regulations, customers’ needs and our own corporate code of conduct.
2. Invest in a comprehensive data protection program.  Make sure your data protection program covers data throughout its lifecycle. It begins with security and privacy by design and includes privacy engineering methodology and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs); managing collection, use, processing and storage; addressing operational needs such as reporting and oversight; and secure disposition or destruction at end of life.
3. Be vigilant about global regulatory requirements. Addressing personal data handling requirements across different jurisdictions around the world requires a mature data privacy practice that aligns with industry best practices, customer demands and regulatory requirements. Being a global data citizen includes awareness and structured flexibility across cultural divides.

With enforcement of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) just around the corner (May 25), Cisco has been getting ready for GDPR across its global enterprise. Additionally, to secure a safe and legal transfer of personal data across multiple jurisdictions, Cisco was an early adopter and among the first to achieve Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Cross-Border Privacy Rules system certification. We are also certified under both the European Union (EU) and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield and recently received accreditation under the EU’s Binding Corporate Rules with policies aligned to GDPR.

With an eye to these three things and a collaborative, risk-based approach to data privacy, companies can focus and respond effectively in an ever more complex and dynamic world.

Student’s Guide to Social Media Security: Managing Privacy Online

College students access open networks more often than any other online users. Unfortunately, some students are careless with managing online activities and personal information, which can make you more vulnerable to security threats, identity theft and malware attacks. Any time you log in to your social media accounts, you leave digital footprints that could be traced back to your identity. Having sensitive data, such as credit card or bank account data and passwords, fall into the wrong hands could result in major repercussions. Identity thieves can access payment information using your login credentials and make fraudulent transactions with your debit and/or credit cards. In addition, posting photos online and location check-ins or tags expose you to stalkers and cyberbullies who can use this information against you. Therefore, as a student, it is important for you to manage your privacy online. Below are some useful guidelines.

Avoid Downloading Free Media

Downloading media from direct download websites, torrents or streaming hosts opens your devices up to viruses and malware. Some of these websites contain malicious codes that can be used to steal your personal information. To prevent this from happening to you, avoid downloading illegal content from piracy websites.

Do Not Store Your Payment Information Online

Amazon and other popular online retailers give users the option of storing payment information on their sites for future use. Even though some of these sites are secure, cybercriminals can still hack and access this stored information and make unauthorized transactions. Avoid storing payment information online to improve your financial security.

Use Strong Passwords

Using your name, birth date, pet’s name or phone number as your password makes it easy for hackers to crack your account. The stronger your password is, the harder it is for hackers to crack. Make your password a sentence that’s at least 12 characters long – you can even use capital and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation and spaces!

If you have a lot of passwords to remember, you may opt to use a password manager that helps you manage all your passwords securely. With many password managers, you only need to remember one password that will enable you to log in to any website that has your login credentials.

Avoid Oversharing Personal Information

Since it’s hard for students to resist the urge to share everything online, cybercriminals can easily access their personal information and use it against them. To prevent this, avoid oversharing and review your privacy settings so that your status updates can be viewed only by the people you trust. Also, declining friend requests from strangers, since they may not be trustworthy, is best practice.

If what you are sharing involves your friends or family, make sure that you check with them to see if they are comfortable with you doing so. This will help you to avoid sharing their sensitive information. Posting about your neighborhood or place of residence could also make your home a target for robbery.

Install The Latest Antivirus Software

Antivirus software protects devices from trojans, worms, viruses and spyware. These malicious programs are capable of invading your privacy and stealing personal data; it is important to have your devices protected by the latest antivirus software.

Unique Account, Unique Password

Create different passwords for different accounts; if a criminal has your login information for one account, he/she will try to break in to your other accounts.

Delete or Clear Tracking Cookies

Tracking cookies are pieces of code that sites attach to your devices to store information concerning what you do while online. This information is then sold to various companies across the globe without you knowing about it.

In case you have concerns regarding the manner in which the data about you is both collected and used, remove or block all the unwanted cookies regularly on your browsers.

Encryption

It is common for social media and banking login pages to use HTTPS encryption to scramble login information and help prevent identity theft. Prior to signing in to a social media platform or other website or app, ensure that you check for https at the beginning of the URL.

It is also possible for you to encrypt your whole hard drives via the use of BitLocker by Microsoft or FileVault by Apple. These two software programs are examples of some of the best current methods of protecting your documents in case you find yourself in a data theft quagmire.

Pop-Up Blocking

Almost all browsers available today have built-in settings that assist in the prevention of pop-ups. In addition to this, you may find that others can allow you to modify the pop-up restrictions in order for you not to miss out on some legitimate data online. With these features available, it is possible for you to avoid accidentally stumbling upon malicious ads.

Be Careful on Public Networks and Computers

Cybercriminals can install malware on public computers and collect personal information from unsuspecting users. Alternatively, these criminals can set up free Wi-Fi hotspot stations and use phishing to collect information. To avoid becoming a victim to such scams, steer clear of using public networks for personal and financial matters.

Conclusion

It is still possible to use social networks to share and engage, but it’s important to be cautious and ensure that you keep your personal information from getting into the wrong hands. Identify the threats to which you’re most vulnerable, and take the necessary measures to protect yourself.

How to Fix a Mac That’s Running Slow

Every device sooner or later begins to run slower and slower. Even the Mac, which is a highly-efficient Apple product, starts to slow down and becomes a real pain to use over time. If you are a heavy Mac user this is especially true and you are more likely to experience performance issues.

There are several other reasons why your Mac might be running slower:

• Limited hard drive space available
• Too many apps running
• Lots of cache and log files in use
• Not enough RAM
• Overloaded browser cache and history
• High CPU utilization
• Other causes

If you find that your Mac is starting to lag in performance, freeze up, or just acting strangely, it’s probably time to optimize it with an efficient Mac cleaning tool.

1. Mac Disk is getting full

Nothing slows down a Mac more than having too much on your hard drive. If you can increase available disc space on your Mac, you’re sure to see an increase in your Mac’s speed.

How to fix it: Clean up your Mac Disk

Unfortunately, doing this manually isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cleaning up old movie files, organizing your Desktop, and searching your Mac for old files you don’t need is the easy part. However, the hard part is cleaning up your system and figuring out all the stuff that can be safely removed for more space. The best option is to use a Mac cleaner, like Dr. Cleaner. It offers all-in-one Mac cleaning features including a disk cleaner for junk files, big files and duplicate files.

Uninstalling apps and deleting useless files from your Mac is easy, but the residual junk or cache files left behind often fill up your disk space and clutter the system. When the free space on your drive gets really low, your Mac stops operating efficiently and becomes very slow. Dr. Cleaner frees up your disk space by removing all the unnecessary and unwanted files in just one click.

2. Outdated Mac OS

Your Mac’s OS X is extremely important to how well it performs. An older OS X typically runs slower — that’s why Apple releases new OS X’s every year or so.

How to fix it: Update your OS X.

Having the latest version of OS X is a good practice (the latest version right now is macOS High Sierra 10.13). Don’t think of it as adding more junk to your already-slow Mac — think of it as new software that makes your Mac run more smoothly. So, head over to the Mac App Store download and install the latest version. You’ll probably see a nice performance boost.

3. Startup is slowing you down

When you start your Mac, a lot of things get loaded in the background. Not only do they slow down your Mac on startup, but they continue to use up resources the whole time you’re using your Mac.

How to fix it: Manage your Startup Items.

Give your Mac a clean start and make OS X run faster. When you don’t manage your Startup Items, it’s like making your Mac run a sprint with a gigantic, book-filled backpack — it’s going to take a bit longer for it to get moving, right? Lighten the load on your Mac.

Speed up your Mac’s startup time by removing unnecessary startup apps. Go to your System Preferences > Users & Groups, then click your username. Now, select Login Items, click the name of an application you don’t need to launch during startup, then click the “-” symbol located below the list to the left. This will remove the application from the list and it will no longer be loaded on startup. This should help a lot to speed up your Mac’s long startup time.

4. Too many things running in the background

Due to increased workload, (for example, when you open multiple heavy applications simultaneously), your RAM tends to get cluttered. Your RAM should have enough space to read and write contents efficiently without any lag. When this memory gets low, your Mac system or apps may become slow or unresponsive.

How to fix it: System Monitor and Memory Free

Activity Monitor shows you which resources various processes are using on your system. Check the list of apps and processes that are running on your Mac in real-time. Quitting unnecessary apps that take up a lot of processing power could make a huge difference in speeding up your slow Mac. Be careful not to remove any critical or necessary processes!

Seems pretty complex, right? Yet there is a much simpler way to do this. With Dr. Cleaner, you can easily monitor your system status. Dr. Cleaner’s smart activity monitor lets you easily view your system’s network usage and CPU usage in real time. This allows you to optimize your Mac on your own whenever you experience performance or speed issues.

5. Overloaded Browser Cache and History

Sometimes, even simple tasks seem to run slowly and you suddenly think ‘Why have I spent my precious dollars on this dumb device’! Well, your anxiety is genuine but you can do something about it. There can be a number of reasons why your Mac is behaving this way and low hard drive space due to an overloaded system and browser cache may be one of them.

How to fix it: Clear Cache on Your Mac.

You can either clear your browser cache manually or you can use Dr. Cleaner’s simple one-click feature to do it for you.

But it all begins with cleaning up your Mac.

Dr. Cleaner: An Easy Way to Speed up your Slow Mac!

Dr. Cleaner is the Best FREE Mac Cleaner app that offers all-in-one Mac cleaning features including; Memory Free, Disk Clean, Uninstall App, and more. It offers great solutions to get rid of all the culprits that slow down your Mac.

Dr. Cleaner also works well on MacOS High Sierra. So, if you have been looking for a safe and reliable app to make your slow Mac run faster, Dr. Cleaner is the answer!

How Dr. Cleaner Works?

Dr. Cleaner is a smart app that comes bundled with three super amazing features to make your Mac work like new again, including – Disk Clean, Memory Free and System Monitoring.

Dr. Cleaner also includes an intelligent app manager, as part of system monitoring, ensuring your Mac runs smoothly and does not slow down or freeze up while you’re using your Mac. Also, with an interactive interface, the app is very easy and simple to use. In just one click, you can clean up the disk or purge the memory of your slow Mac to speed it up and enjoy much improved performance.

Is Dr. Cleaner really worth downloading?

When you own such a high-end, expensive Mac device, why suffer from lagging issues! Your Mac should be capable of always delivering the best performance so you can complete your work on time and without any stress or hassle.

Dr. Cleaner is definitely worth downloading because it refreshes the performance and speeds up your Mac all at NO COST! Dr. Cleaner is also safe. With more than 4,000,000 downloads in 30 months, 110,000 ratings with an average score of 4.8 stars, you can be sure Dr. Cleaner is completely reliable. Its simplicity in terms of interface and usage makes Dr. Cleaner really worth trying. So, the next time you find your Mac running slow, make sure you use Dr. Cleaner.

Nearly Half of the Norway Population Exposed in HealthCare Data Breach

An unknown hacker or group of hackers managed to breach the systems of Health South-East Regional Health Authority (RHF) and reportedly stolen personal info and health records of some 2.9 million Norwegians out of the country's total 5.2 million inhabitants. Health South-East RHA is a healthcare organisation that manages hospitals in Norway’s southeast region, including Østfold, Akershus, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder.

The healthcare organisation announced the data breach on Monday after it had been alerted by HelseCERT, the Norwegian CERT department for its healthcare sector, about an "abnormal activity" against computer systems in the region.

HelseCERT also said the culprits behind the data breach are "advanced and professional" hackers, although it is still unknown as to whether they were managed to exfiltrate data successfully and if so, how many people may have been impacted.

So far there's also no evidence if the stolen data theft has had any consequences for or effects on patients' safety. However, the healthcare organisation assured that security "measures had been taken to limit the damage caused by the burglary."

"We are in a phase where we try to get an overview. It's far too early to say how big the attack is. We are working to acquire knowledge of all aspects, " NorCERT director Kjetil Nilsen told Norwegian publication VG.

"Everything indicates that it is an advanced player who has the tools and ability to perform such an attack. It can be advanced criminals. There is a wide range of possibilities."

Why Do Hackers Want Your Health Data?

Digital healthcare has been growing to satisfy the demands of connected healthcare technology that provides better treatment and improved patient care.

We know that any organisation with a computer is at risk from cyber-attacks both from criminals wanting to extort money and state-sponsored hackers wanting to cause chaos.

Since the healthcare sector is part of the critical national infrastructure, alongside water, electricity and transport, it becomes an attractive target for hackers.

Believe it or not, your medical records are worth more to hackers than your stolen credit card details on the dark web markets.

Financial data has a finite lifespan, but the information contained in health care records—which includes names, birth dates, policy numbers, diagnosis codes, social security number and billing information—has a much longer shelf life and is rich enough for identity theft.

Fraudsters can use this data to create fake identities to do all illegal kinds of stuff in your name, combine a patient number with a false provider number and file fake claims with insurers, and even file fake tax returns using your stolen addresses, phone numbers and employment history.

How to Protect Yourself After a Data Breach?

If you are a one of those affected by the healthcare breach, you will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of your lives, because the risk of identity theft isn't short term, unlike in case of credit cards fraud.

You may follow the following steps to protect yourself:

1) Monitor Your Accounts: Watch out if someone using your information do not ever try to take over or transfer money out of your existing accounts. Don’t forget that thieves with stolen details on you can get through your security questions, including the last four digits of your social and street address. Also, watch for any unauthorised activity or transfers on your current financial accounts.

2) File Your Taxes Early: With the stolen information in the hands, cyber thieves could hook your tax refund by filing your taxes early and claiming it for themselves. So, to avoid any such problems, file your taxes as early as possible.

3) Stay Vigilant: The foremost thing to protect against any breach is to stay vigilant, as nobody knows when or where your stolen identities will be used. So, affected consumers will simply have to stay mindful forever.

Apple HomePod Release Date, News and Features

Unveiled at WWDC 2017, the Apple HomePod is Apple's answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home. It's a voice assistant-equipped speaker that will help with everyday tasks, control your smart home and play music on command. After first appearing on phones, voice assistants entered the home in a big way with the Amazon Echo, and now Apple's looking to get into the action.

While Apple has had a voice assistant, Siri, on its phones for some time now, it has so far been left behind when it comes to smart speakers. Competitor Google brought its own voice assistant to dedicated hardware with the Google Home speaker last year. That all changes with the introduction of the HomePod.

Apple finally announced the speaker at WWDC 2017, but since then we haven't heard too much more about it. A planned release date of December 2017 came and went without much fanfare, and Apple is yet to confirm when exactly the speaker will arrive beyond saying 'early 2018'.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? A smart speaker equipped with Apple’s Siri voice assistant
• When is it out? Recent rumors report to February 2018
• What will it cost? $349

Apple Siri Speaker release date

The Apple HomePod was originally slated for release in December 2017 at a price of $349. At least that was the plan when the speaker was first announced.

Recently, Apple told TechRadar that while the company is excited to bring the speaker to the market, it'd need some more time to do so. To that end, the HomePod won't make its original release window and should be available to purchase in the US sometime in 2018 in both white and space grey.

Apple later confirmed that it expected to start shipping the speaker in 'early 2018'.

Recent rumors suggest that this could come as early as February 2018, but without official confirmation from Apple this news should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Apple Siri Speaker features

The HomePod is equipped with 7 tweeters on its base, along with a 4-inch upward-facing woofer. You can also pair two of the speakers together for a stereo configuration – but no specific mention yet of the ability to use the speakers in a 5.1 home cinema configuration, as is possible with rival Sonos gear.

The speaker itself is around 7-inches tall, and Apple has promised that setup will be as easy as it was with the W1 chip-equipped Apple AirPods. You'll need an iPhone 5s or later running iOS 11 if you want it to be compatible with the speaker.

Apple has confirmed that the new speaker will be spatially aware, so it should know how to optimise its sound to suit your home. It can detect the space that it's in, directing channels as appropriate depending on its location.

Hopefully this should mean its sound won't boom too much if its left in a corner, but we'll have to see how it performs in the real world before we can say for sure.

The speaker is equipped with 6 microphones that it will use to listen for voice commands. You can not only use it to control music, but you can also ask it questions about the music that's currently playing, such as for the name's of participating band members. "Who is the drummer in this?" was one specific (and cool) query Apple highlighted at the speaker's reveal.

You can tell the speaker when you like songs in order for Apple Music to recommend more that's similar to the tunes that's currently being played.

Apple boasts that the microphone array is intelligent enough to cancel out background noise so that the speaker can hear you over the sound of its own music. This is helped by its included A8 chip, which Apple claims is the most powerful processor to ever be found in a speaker.

The A8 chip first appeared in the iPhone 6 back in 2014, so it's not the newest chip Apple has to offer - but that's still incredibly powerful for a speaker.

The  HomePod is also compatible with a number of non-music features, such as reminders, giving weather information, and controlling HomeKit supported smart home devices.

Interestingly Apple has also said that the HomePod is "a great way to send messages", suggesting that it will include iMessage integration.

Although the hardware is powerful, we still have some reservations about Siri as a voice assistant. Siri has some significant problems compared to competing voice services, and we'll have to see whether the HomePod is able to address these issues.

For example, at the moment Siri heavily prioritises Apple’s own apps rather than allowing you to use alternatives. Ask Siri to play some music, and it will only be able to play songs that are located in your Apple Music app. Apple has explicitly said that HomePod is designed to work with an Apple Music subscription.

This is in contrast to both Alexa and Google Assistant, which both allow you to use a music app of your choice, rather than restricting you to Amazon Prime Music and Google Play music respectively.

Based on some developer digging, it doesn't look like third-party apps are going to be allowed on the HomePod - at least, not to begin with.

At least the interface looks seamless. Someone recently got a sneak peak at the interface for connecting to a HomePod and posted a screenshot on Twitter. It seems that the speaker will integrate seamlessly into the control center.

 Amazon has been especially open with allowing developers to integrate their services into its smart speakers. It allows the creation of ‘Skills’ which essentially act as apps for the smart speaker, and so far there have been over 10,000 of them created for the speaker.

Another issue with Siri is that it can sometimes be a little...stupid. Ask it when the Mona Lisa was painted (that's 1503, art buffs), and the voice assistant will happily tell you that ‘the answer is one thousand, five hundred and three,’ rather than being intelligent enough to realise that the year should be read aloud as ‘fifteen oh-three’.

Of course there’s always the chance that Apple will put significant effort into improving Siri before the HomePod is released in December. Google did a similar thing when it overhauled Google Now, creating Google Assistant, in the months before the Google Home was released.

Finally, comments by Apple VP Phil Schiller which suggested that Apple was thinking along the lines of a Siri speaker with an integrated screen - turned out to be false.

A new challenger has entered the arena

Smart speakers are one of the most unexpected and cool technologies to have come out over the past couple of years, and interesting to see each of the technology giants repurposing their existing voice assistants to work in a home context.

Apple isn't the only one with such a device on the horizon. Harmon Kardon is readying a home speaker equipped with Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant, and between that and Google's existing smart speaker efforts, the market is set to get crowded very quickly.

Apple has a real chance of standing out when it comes to its home automation efforts thanks to HomeKit, but it's not as strong when it comes to integrating with non-Apple services such as Spotify.

Hopefully the HomePod's audio technology will allow it to stand out against the competition.