The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR enforcement date, is quickly closing in. It’s a sweeping and relatively new form of legislation that will change the current landscape considerably. How so? Well, it puts a lot of pressure on organizations to bolster advanced data security and privacy.
More specifically, it’s a European regulation that will go into effect on May 25, 2018. It’s an update to the existing directives or legislature called the Data Protection Directive.
What Is GDPR and What Will It Do?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — which will be enforced across the entirety of Europe, including the UK — is meant to offer protection and privacy controls to the country’s citizens. Not only will they have more power, but a unified set of rules and standards are also being established to boost security and protections. There are a variety of new precautions and processes organizations will need to follow concerning all information, but mostly consumer data.
Although it’s strictly an EU law, that doesn’t mean it won’t spread elsewhere. In fact, the GDPR will have a global impact when it goes into effect. Any business, brand or team that holds, collects, stores or processes personal data from citizens of the EU will need to follow the guidelines and specifications outlined in the law. It doesn’t envelope consumers alone, either — it also includes your employees, personnel, clients and prospective clients based in the EU.
Should you choose to ignore the law, you can face fines of up to €20m or 4% of your global annual turnover.
What Rules Apply?
The rules set forth by the GDPR are quite complex. But, we can break them down so they’re easier to understand and follow — here’s an excellent infographic that accomplishes the same.
GDPR restrictions adhere to the following concepts:
Not much should stand out from standard security operations — that is, if you already value the privacy and protection of the data you have available to you. And you should, because just about every form of information is stored and accessible from the cloud these days, including your shopping habits, the places you visit, the conversations you have with friends and family, your emails, your medical records and too much more.
New York Times best-selling author Shawn DuBravac, says it best in his latest book, Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate.
“We don’t keep things locked in our hard drives [anymore], instead we let services like Dropbox store them for us, just as a bank store most of our money.”
Today, everything is stored as data, most likely on a public network. Security and privacy should be a primary concern for every business and or individual.
Customers, personnel and anyone else you serve all care about their privacy and security. It’s just good business to at least enforce security protocols and make sure the data you are responsible for is, for the most part, protected. Don’t store raw data on a public server, always encrypt sensitive information and content, deploy the appropriate authentication measures and systems and maintain proper security — via audits — over time.
What Impact Will It Have on Businesses?
Compliance and adherence to regulatory measures are the number one concerns for lawmakers and would-be enforcers. That means these concepts should also be your utmost priorities when serving EU citizens if they aren’t already.
Farming out or “siloing” security is not a good idea in the current landscape — heck, it never was. Instead, you’ll need to ensure you embed security, protection, privacy and related protocols into the fabric and foundation of your business.
The most significant shift, of course, will be educating and training every single person, employee and partner involved in the data chain. There can be no more weak links, per se. Everyone needs to get involved, and everyone needs to work together to maintain proper security and privacy.
Expect for your spending on security to increase, but also for the training, deployment, tools and software to become prominent concerns — and investments.
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2017 was one of the worst years for data breaches yet, and it’s only downhill from here. Here’s what you need to do to prepare yourself.
These days, it seems like it’s no longer a question of if your personal information will wind up in the hands of hackers, but when. You can’t even tune into the news anymore without hearing a security failure or data breach. Fancy Bear’s attack on US Defense Contractors and attempted disruption of the Olympic games are the latest stories to make the rounds, and you can bet money that once the news cycle fades on those two, new breaches will appear to fill the void.
Sensitive data – enterprise, public sector, or otherwise – has never been targeted with quite so much frequency, and the threat surface facing modern organizations has never been greater. You need to start accounting for that. Because if you don’t, your organization might be next on the long list of breach victims.
But where exactly can you start? What can you do to protect your business and its data? How can you ensure that in this era of massive cyber attacks and digital espionage, you come out unscathed?
First, Know What You Need To Protect
The most important tool in your battle against the digital threat landscape is knowledge. You need to know what data your business needs to protect, where that data is stored, who uses that data, how they access it, and why. The most important thing is to understand the flows of data across your network.
For instance, a document containing marketing information on a product launch will likely be shared with both internal staff and external stakeholders. Both parties might open that document on a myriad selection of devices, from smartphones and tablets to laptops and desktops. Understand where that access takes place, and do your best to identify any potential vulnerabilities (an unsecured wireless network, for example).
Second, Know Your Threat Profile
What sort of criminals would want to target your organization, and why?
Are you a healthcare provider that works with data which is vulnerable to ransomware or can be sold for a mint on the black market? Are you a defense contractor that works with classified information a foreign power might want to get their hands on? Are you a consumer device manufacturer whose proprietary blueprints could destroy your competitive advantage if they’re leaked?
That’s your most valuable data, but it’s not the only information that might be compromised. Client lists, employee information, and financial data are all vulnerable as well, regardless of industry or vertical. By acknowledging this – and understanding the intent of the criminals targeting your organization – you can better prepare yourself against them.
Third, Talk To Your Employees
No matter what sort of security measures you put in place and no matter how ironclad your infrastructure, your employees will always be the weakest link. Hackers know that – it’s why phishing scams are still one of the most popular avenues of attack. It’s a lot easier to fool a tired but well-meaning staffer into clicking on a link than it is targeting an expensive, complex security system, after all.
You need mandatory security training to mitigate at least some of the risk here. Coach employees on the importance of cybersecurity, and help them understand what they’re protecting and why. It won’t prevent human-based cyberattacks altogether – everyone makes mistakes, even you – but it will allow you to mitigate the risk.
And solutions do exist to address this problem further, as well. We’ll talk more about those in a moment.
Fourth, Look At Your Partners
I recall a story I heard once about a business with a large competitive advantage over its overseas rivals, tied to a proprietary set of technologies present in all their products. This enterprise took cyber security very seriously. Its security perimeter was nigh impenetrable, and its workers all regularly had to undergo rigorous security training.
It still ended up getting breached.
See, a black hat group hired by one of the company’s rivals saw its formidable security posture, and concluded that it wouldn’t be possible to hack the company directly. Instead, it started examining the organization’s business partners. Eventually, the group noticed that one of the manufacturers the organization worked with had incredibly lax security – and that was when they struck.
Next thing the business knew, its designs were in the hands of its competitors, and its advantage in the market was gone.
The lesson in this story is simple. Even if your own security is some of the best in your industry, you cannot trust that your business partners will have the same posture as you. While working only with organizations that have proven cybersecurity can certainly help in that regard, you need to do more.
Finally, Put Your Defenses In Place
With all the necessary knowledge in place – the threats facing your business, where your sensitive data is stored, how it’s accessed and used, and your network map – you can now finally lay out your security plans. For this stage, it’s easiest to break what you need to secure down into four categories. These are people, apps, systems, and data.
For Apps, Consider The Following
For People, Consider The Following
For Systems, Consider The Following
For Data, Consider The Following
Cyber attacks and data breaches have reached an all-time high. Unfortunately, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Only with a comprehensive approach to an understanding of cybersecurity can you protect yourself, and keep your data out of the hands of the people who would misuse it.
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Employee well-being is a major concern for organizations, especially when those entities are concerned about productivity.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a report revealing that in 2016, there were 2.9 million reported workplace-related injuries and illnesses.
Nearly one-third of them required workers to take days off work. Those are significant numbers considering that many workers do not formally make reports to their bosses when they get sick.
In the United Kingdom, data shows there were 25.7 million days of work lost in 2016 and 2017 due to illnesses. Also, 12.5 million of those cases were related to depression, anxiety or stress.
It’s not surprising that many employers are investigating ways to take proactive measures to prevent employees from getting sick.
One of their main efforts involves using big data and poring over statistics that could indicate instances of ill health are on the rise or going down. However, both potential positive and negative aspects of that approach exist. Here are some thoughts.
People Can Get Healthier Together
Many of the advantages of collecting employee data involve people teaming up to track their metrics over time and work toward a common goal, such as weight loss. In those cases, participants can encourage each other and see the changes in their colleagues.
Employers Experience Cost Savings
When employees can’t work due to illness, they frequently cause their colleagues to bear the burdens of their absence and may disrupt operations in the process, creating new expenses. Also, if key individuals working on critical projects get sick, organizations could face costly consequences due to missed deadlines.
When employees are healthier, workplace representatives may choose less expensive, more appropriate health insurance premium packages, too.
Employees Could Feel Discriminated Against
Some companies reportedly track employee health data to see how many employees are likely to become pregnant.
Women frequently already experience a great deal of anxiety about telling their employers they’ll need to take maternity leave or otherwise adjust their work schedules due to pregnancy, and this new development could make that worse.
One app called Castlight gathers data about employees and uses it to urge them to make better decisions about their health. Not surprisingly, some individuals assert that practice is too invasive.
The company says it cannot give organizations data about individual employees, but that does not always make people feel better.
That’s because current laws give more freedom to sort through health data that does not identify a person compared to the material that does.
Even if a worker’s data is represented in a larger segment, he or she might wonder if data pulled from a software suite is causing a boss to have unfavorable views of the individual’s dietary choices, decision to smoke cigarettes or the fact that he or she drinks lots of soda at work.
Fearful Feelings May Increase
Also, individuals are already wary about how the apps they use collect and evaluate data about them. That’s because many of the apps do it silently in the background.
Sometimes, the data collection practices are part of the terms of use for an application, so if users do not consent, they cannot access the app.
If people do not understand how their workplaces use collected information and feel they cannot go to a designated individual or department to ask questions, they may become so uneasy that their work outputs decrease.
If the pressure feels too great, they may look for other employment prospects.
Being Transparent Is Often Preferable
When an organization decides to start using big data for employee tracking purposes, that conclusion could mean many things.
Some specifics must be determined. For example, what statistics are gathered, and why? Also, are employees aware of the data tracking methods, and can they opt out of them without fear of being seen as non-compliant?
It’s crucial for workplaces to keep ethics in mind at all times when collecting and using data. They must determine the best ways to protect employee privacy while meeting organizational objectives.
Coming up with an information governance plan and asking for employees’ input is a great start. Furthermore, workers should get the opportunity to formally say they do not consent to their details being collected and not have to give reasons why that’s the case.
Making employees aware of what to do if they have questions about data use at work is another excellent step to take.
Also, employers should strive to show they’re genuinely open to receiving feedback. Being able to provide it should make employees feel they still have some control over data about themselves and how it is used.
Health data collection is a practice likely to continue gaining popularity in modern workplaces.
However, keeping employees on board with the idea and not making them consider working elsewhere involves honesty and openness about the techniques used and what purposes they serve.
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Chatbots are conversational tools, capable of engaging multiple users to give structured responses to the most basic queries. Due to their instantaneity and ease of use, they have demonstrated significant potential on E-Commerce websites. As users face issues getting to their desired product page on the website and making a purchase decision thereafter, chatbots can prove to be useful for enticing these users that are about to leave the website without purchasing.
In addition to increasing overall efficiency of customer service, chatbots can also be successfully targeted on relevant product pages to display offers and promotions in order to persuade users that are on the page. If used effectively, they could be great learning tools to know more about your customer’s shopping habits with the intention to offer more relevant products in the future. As research shows that more than 80% of businesses will have some sort of automation through chatbots by 2020; the future for chatbots in e-commerce does look very promising indeed.
This infographic by Market Inspector shows how chatbots optimize a customer’s online purchase experience using the most recent user surveys.
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Artificial Intelligence or AI is expected to be in major demand by retail consumers due to its ability to make interactions in retail as flawless and seamless as possible. Many of us do realize the potential of AI and all that it is capable of, along with the support of Machine Learning or ML, but don’t realize that the implementation of AI in certain segments has already begun.
AI in Retail
The future for AI and the complicated computer processes involved behind it is really bright in the field of retail. AI currently has numerous data sets working along with computer visualization methods to ensure that the users get the most seamless experience when it comes to AI in the workplace. There are some interesting facts that pertain to the use of AI in retail. Here we have some of them to build the insight into what you can expect during the feature;
With such promising figures on the card, one cannot help but notice the wave of change that has already started in the field of retail. With work already in progress, major retailers such as Amazon and Walmart have made advances that are expected to dictate this transition to AI in retail. We will be looking at these advancements, and will see how they can work out in the future.
Walmart’s Shelf Scanning Robots
You might have heard of shelf-scanning robots being tested by retailers, but we’re just about to witness one of the most interesting advances in the deployment of these robots. Walmart, which is one of the biggest physical retail chains across the world, is planning to extend the tests for its shelf-scanning robots across 50 additional stores, including some from its native land of Arkansas.
The machines, which have been deemed to be the future of shelf scanning, will roam around the aisles to check all factors including pricing, misplaced items, and stock levels, to assess the level of stocks within the store. This would not only save human staff all the hassle of checking these trivial details by themselves, but would also mean that they can focus on other more important details. The machines will require technicians to be present on site to handle the situation in case of a technological impairment, but the robots are currently fully autonomous to handle their tasks themselves. These robots will be using the concepts of 3D imaging to roam around aisles, dodge obstacles, and to make notes about the blockages in their pathway.
Amazon Go
Amazon Go is the latest wave of technology in retail that is expected to lead the way to the future of AI in retail. The basic concept behind Amazon Go is that it is a new kind of store that flourishes on the concept of no checkout requirements. Consumers who walk into a store can take whatever they want without having to go through the hassle of lines and waiting for checkout.
The checkout free shopping experience in Amazon Go is only made possible through the use of the same technology that is currently in place behind computer vision, sensor fusion, and self-driving cars. The technology automatically detects all that is being taken and keeps track of them in a virtual cart. Shortly after the consumer leaves, they will be sent a receipt and charged through their Amazon account.
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After the second Bitcoin fork creating a new cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Gold (BTG), it became the victim of aDistributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The DDoS attack of Bitcoin Gold caused it to go offline at a very critical moment in the new cryptocurrencies infancy.
Since that first attack,Bitcoin Gold has been the subject of further cyber attacks. This has had an impact on the digital currency’s value. It has caused less confidence in user investment after previous BTG holders lost millions of dollars.
Some think those who believe the hard fork was disruptive to the crypto-community masterminded the cyber attacks. No one will really ever know, but Bitcoin Gold was hit hard, and repetitively.
The focus should now be shifted to how cryptocurrency attacks can be prevented in the future, or at the least, not become a regular occurrence.
About Bitcoin Gold
Bitcoin Gold was created after the second Bitcoin hard fork. Like Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold was touted as the new and improved Bitcoin. The hard fork allowed Bitcoin holders to get a one-for-one coin of Bitcoin Gold. This allowed Bitcoin holders to furtherdiversify cryptocurrency portfolios.
The big difference between Bitcoin Gold and its counterparts is that it has mining allowances the others don’t. For instance, companies have monopolized Bitcoin mining, usingapplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). This goes against the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Gold aims to decentralize mining once again with an algorithm ASICs can’t penetrate. It is a return to the early Bitcoin days when mining could net cryptocurrency holders extra money.
Unfortunately, the decentralization mission Bitcoin Gold was created for became the subject of much scrutiny. People in the crypto-community were unraveled over the Bitcoin Gold creators’ private mining period that reduced the digital currency’s volume. Thus the speculation that the opposition to Bitcoin Gold facilitated the cyber attacks.
Relentless Cyber Attacks on Bitcoin Gold
There was no shortage of cyber attacks after the Bitcoin hard fork that created Bitcoin Gold. Bitcoin Gold was created in October of 2017 and immediately suffered a DDoS cyber attack. The attack overloaded the server that caused the network to go offline.
Then in November, nearly a month later, Bitcoin Gold’s wallet,mybtgwallet, was found fraudulent. As soon as the scam was identified the wallet was removed, but an estimated $3.3 million was lost.
Yet again, a week after the fraudulent wallet scam, Bitcoin Gold needed to issue a warning that detailedsuspicious files in the network’s Windows wallet installer. Due to a potential for more user money to be lost, those who had downloaded the files were instructed to delete them immediately and remove cryptocurrency access from users’ computers.
Bitcoin Gold is not the only victim of cyber attacks and malicious attempts to steal funds. From Initial Coin Offering ICO scams to hacked exchanges, cryptocurrency has definite pitfalls in the security sector.
Is Poor Security to Blame?
The cyber attacks have led to some serious security concerns for Bitcoin Gold and the entire crypto-community. The poor security of Bitcoin Gold made many question the digital currency’s ability to rise as a cryptocurrency contender.
Even popular exchanges like Coinbase decided to steer clear of the latest Bitcoin offering. The largest exchange in the crypto-community announced that theywouldn’t support Bitcoin Gold on their platform due to developers not making the network’s code available publicly, stating, “This is a major security risk.”
The Bitcoin Gold cyber attacks are no rarity. Various cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges have fallen prey to hacks resulting in millions of dollars lost. For instance,CoinDash lost an estimated $7 million after web applications were found vulnerable.
ICOs are a new way to net funding via cryptocurrency. However, these have been vulnerable to scams. Just recentlyscammers posing as Seele ICO admins stole over $1.8 million. This has caused even more security ripples over the cryptocurrency network.
Improving Cryptocurrency Security
The Bitcoin Gold cyber attacks and the scams and hacks of other cryptocurrency platforms is definitely a call to action for improving cryptocurrency security. A few security-minded measures include:
Learning from Crypto-Mistakes . . .
There was a lot to learn from the Bitcoin hard fork to Bitcoin Gold. It highlighted how easy cyber attacks can happen repetitively to the largest cryptocurrency on the digital marketplace. The cyber attacks also put a bright shining light on the lack of security. By improving cryptocurrency security, the crypto-community will secure a digital market for the future. Are you concerned with current cryptocurrency security?
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