Good time to be in IoT security: Spending on Internet of Things security products and services will rise to $1.5 billion in 2018, up 28 percent from 2017, estimates Gartner. IoT security spending will skyrocket to $3 billion a year in 2021, according to a story in DarkReading.
Facebook breached? It was hard to avoid the recent news involving Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm used by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The company acquired data on about 50 million Facebook users – getting the data from a researcher – in an effort to build voting profiles for those people. Facebook has called the unauthorized use of its user data a “breach of trust,” while some critics have suggested it’s a plain old data breach, according to a story on Time.com. Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told CNN he’s happy to comply with congressional requests to testify “if it’s the right thing to do.”
Blockchain takes over the world: Google is planning to roll out a Blockchain feature for its cloud-computing service, The Verge reports. The company could potentially license its Blockchain service for other firms to run on their servers. Meanwhile, Chinese telecom and networking vendor Huawei Technologies may be developing a mobile phone that could run Blockchain applications alongside Android, Engadget reports. And Coca-Cola has also gotten into the act; it’s working with the U.S. Department of State and other organizations to use Blockchain to track and combat forced labor and other exploitative practices, according to a story in Digital Trends.
Spies vs. encryption: Several Western nations, include the United States and United Kingdom, have been struggling in recent years over whether device makers or app developers should help law enforcement agencies decrypt data on devices. The issue over encrypted data has also led to the Russian Supreme Court, which ruled that messaging service Telegram must turn over encryption keys to the Russian Federal Security Service. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, however, insists the company will not give up the keys, according to a story in TechTarget.
Encryption compromise? The encryption vs. law enforcement debate in recent years has largely divided into two distinct camps, but researchers at Boston University believe they may have found a middle ground, reports ZDNet. The so-called cryptographic “crumpling” technique would give law enforcement limited access to targeted communications.
“You need to have facts for society to work.” Read our interview with Wired Editor in Chief Nicholas Thompson on the changing role of media, then explore the 2017 Internet Society Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future and read the recommendations to ensure that humanity remains at the center of tomorrow’s Internet.
Learn more about IoT, including what you can do to make it more secure.