Last Week in Cybersecurity

Jan 20, 2025

Was ISACA running tests with people’s live data? In case you didn’t know, ISACA sent a message asking members to log in but later retracted it, claiming it was a testing error and no data was lost. Personally, I think they didn’t fully disclose what happened. What they didn’t address was whether they were testing with live data or if the issue was due to production errors. Anyway, which of ISACA’s Review Manuals discusses ethics or safe testing? Guess they don’t read it anyway.

In the US, parents and schoolchildren are unsafe both physically and digitally. They face gun violence in schools (why do people take their grievances out on innocent school children?) and data breaches. (See: Glenwood School District Data Breach)

Biden has been issuing pardons, providing aids, and now signing cybersecurity orders (Biden’s Executive Order on Cybersecurity). Nothing would irritate Trump more than an executive order early on January 20th that sells the US to Greenland at a huge discount, making the buyer the “buyee” (if that’s a word).

Meanwhile, Trump may want to start with the White House’s publication from January 18, 2025, stressing the cybersecurity threat posed by foreign nation-state actors. The article discusses the need for a national security approach to protect U.S. infrastructure, especially from China. The U.S. government is collaborating with the private sector to strengthen cybersecurity but requires more scalable solutions and resources. See See article here?

Now, Apple’s new AI feature in phones, summarizing news headlines, has sparked controversy for generating misleading or false information, leading to backlash from press freedom groups. (Read more on CNN)

Sam Altman fears that AI could cause harm (watch his interview here), but OpenAI continues to push forward, now combining AI with science to explore longevity and extend human life to witness all AI predictions come true. (Tech Review article)