Nine great industry news stories from this week you may have missed.
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CyberNews hijacked 28,000 unsecured printers to raise awareness of printer security issues
Most people already know the importance of using antivirus, anti-malware and VPNs to secure their computers, phones and other devices against potential attacks. Printers? Not so much. CyberNews wanted to show users the importance of protecting printers from becoming easy prey for cybercriminals, so they decided to bring the message home. In order to help as many people as possible secure their devices against potential cyberattacks, the CyberNews security team accessed 27,944 printers around the world and forced the hijacked devices to print out a short 5-step guide on how to secure a printer, with a link to a more detailed version of the guide on their website. Click here to read the breakdown or watch their explainer video.
Not sure whether your printer is safe? View Ricoh's Printer Security Guide here.
CRA's handling of COVID-19 benefit cyberattacks 'reprehensible,' alleges proposed class-action lawsuit
A proposed class-action lawsuit has been launched against the federal government on behalf of Canadians who applied online for COVID-19 emergency aid — only to have their personal and financial information stolen by hackers. CBC has reported the lawsuit alleges that a series of "failings" by the government and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) allowed at least three cyberattacks between mid-March and mid-August, but the public wasn't alerted until CBC broke the story on August 15.
In absence of government data, Montreal father creates website to track schools with cases of COVID-19
The Quebec government hasn't said whether it will start updating the public on COVID-19 cases in schools — but some citizens don’t seem willing to wait. A Montreal father who started a new crowd-sourced website meant to track school COVID-19 cases says it’s already garnered more than 100,000 page views. Last week, as French-language schools reopened, he launched a homemade site called Covid Ecoles Quebec that allows the public to submit reports of coronavirus cases at schools across the province. Visit CBC's website to read the full story.
Mozilla research: Browsing histories are unique enough to reliably identify users
A recently-published study conducted by three Mozilla employees has looked at the privacy provided by browsing histories. According to ZDNet, their findings show that most users have unique web browsing habits that allow online advertisers to create accurate profiles. These profiles can then be used to track and re-identify users across different sets of user data that contain even small samples of a user's browsing history. The study shows that even a small list of 50 to 150 of the user's favorite and most accessed domains can let advertisers create a unique tracking profile. Read all the details here.
Microsoft developed a tool that can spot deepfakes
As deepfake videos become more of a concern online, Microsoft has developed a tool called ‘Microsoft Video Authenticator’ to detect if a video is real or fake. Mobile Syrup reports the tool can analyze both still images and videos and provide users with a percentage. That percentage indicates how confident the program is that the video is faked — meaning the higher the number, the more likely it's been artificially manipulated.
9 rules for strong passwords: How to create and remember your login credentials
The key to online security is having strong passwords, but the challenge is to create distinct passwords that you can actually remember — or else you may fall into the bad habit of using the same login credentials for multiple accounts. If you're having trouble thinking of creative passwords (or keeping track of them), take a look at CNET's recent article where they provide nine helpful tips for success.
Employee-monitoring technology: Productivity vs privacy
Even before COVID-19, employers were increasingly adopting technologies to monitor employees’ activities. A 2018 Gartner survey found that more than 50 per cent of large corporations were monitoring their employees in “non-traditional ways” — up from 30 per cent in 2015. The techniques used ranged from analyzing employees’ emails and social media posts, to scrutinising who they were meeting with and gathering their biometric data. This week, In The Black shared why (and how) employees are being monitored as well as investigated the balance between trust and micromanagement.
Kansas City's WWI Museum is avoiding layoffs by giving employees thousands of pages from its archives to digitize
A museum in Kansas City, Missouri is avoiding laying off its employees during the coronavirus pandemic by giving some of them a big project to take on. CNN reports the National WWI Museum and Memorial is moving ten of its employees to a team dedicated to digitizing thousands of letters, diaries and journals. The goal of digitizing the estimated 300,000 objects is to make the history of the First World War more accessible to the public and easier to translate into different languages.
FBI worried that Ring doorbells are spying on police
Hacked documents suggest that the FBI is concerned some people may be using Ring or other smart doorbells to watch the police. According to BBC, the papers describe a 2017 incident where someone remotely watched live footage of police preparing to serve a search warrant. The hacked papers, known collectively as BlueLeaks, were stolen from more than 250 police websites. Click here to read the full story.
