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Security & Privacy


Columbia U Opens Research Center Devoted to Blockchain Tech

A new center at Columbia University will focus on research and innovation in blockchain technology. The institution partnered with IBM to create the Columbia-IBM Center for Blockchain and Data Transparency, which will "combine cross-disciplinary teams from the academic, scientific, business and government communities to explore key issues related to the policy, trust, sharing and consumption of digital data when using blockchain and other privacy-preserving technologies," according to a news announcement.

Protecting Privacy while Leveraging Opportunity

UCLA's chief privacy officer talks about the differences between privacy and information security in higher education along with the need to consider opportunities as well as risks.



Rave Guardian Expands Messaging App Support, Integrates with Rave Alert

Rave Mobile Safety has released a major update to one of its messaging platforms, Rave Guardian.

Research: Slight Changes to Appearance of Privacy Warnings Significantly Improves Attention

New research from a team at Brigham Young University finds that people tend to tune out security warnings as they see them more often. Using a few variations can significantly increase users' adherence to the warnings, the study found.

What GDPR Means for U.S. Higher Education

With the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation looming, colleges and universities in the United States are working out how to achieve compliance.

MIT, Stanford Project Protects Security of Genomic Data for Open Research

In a paper appearing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers from MIT and Stanford University have described a new system they've developed for protecting the privacy of people who contribute their genomic data to large-scale biomedical studies. These studies are intended to uncover links among genetic variations in identifying the causes for diseases. The protocol is intended to help make currently restricted data available to the scientific community, potentially enabling secure genome crowdsourcing while still making sure individuals can contribute their genomes to a study without compromising their privacy.

26,000 Malicious Apps Use Facebook APIs

The mop-up work for Facebook in the wake of its privacy reform could take much longer than we might expect.

Education Sector Excels at Creating Strong Passwords

According to a recent report from cybersecurity training provider Wombat Security, end users in the education sector are more knowledgeable about building safe passwords than people in other industries. The 2018 Beyond the Phish Report analyzed user responses to nearly 85 million questions related to phishing and data security. Respondents came from 16 industries, including education, government, technology and manufacturing.

Report: 7 in 10 Attempted Data Breaches in Education Are Financially Motivated

One in five attacks on educational institution were motivated by espionage, often targeting sensitive research, and 11 percent of attacks are "just for fun," according to the report.

Report: Security Services Spending to Top $91 Billion This Year

Spending on security, including hardware, software and services, will reach $91.4 billion this year, according to a new forecast from International Data Corp, marking a 10.2 percent increase over 2017 spending. That growth rate will remain relatively steady throughout the forecast period, according to the company, holding a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent from 2016 to 2021, when the forecast calls for $120.7 billion in spending.