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Meta has been given time till September 1, 2024, to respond to concerns raised by the European Commission over its "pay or consent" advertising model or risk-facing enforcement measures, including sanctions. The European Commission said the Consumer Protection Cooperation ( CPC ) Network has notified the social media giant that the model adopted for Facebook and Instagram might potentially violate consumer protection laws. It described the new practice as misleading and confusing, with authorities expressing worries that consumers might have been pressured into choosing quickly between either paying for a monthly subscription or consenting to their personal data being used for targeted advertising. This, the agency said, could have been motivated by fears that they "would instantly lose access to their accounts and their network of contacts." Meta, which introduced a subscription plan for European Union (E.U.) users in late 2023, has run into hot water over o

Meta has suspended the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in Brazil after the country's data protection authority issued a preliminary ban objecting to its new privacy policy. The development was first reported by news agency Reuters. The company said it has decided to suspend the tools while it is in talks with Brazil's National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) to address the agency's concerns over its use of GenAI technology. Earlier this month, ANPD halted with immediate effect the social media giant's new privacy policy that granted the company access to users' personal data to train its GenAI systems. The decision stems from "the imminent risk of serious and irreparable damage or difficult-to-repair damage to the fundamental rights of the affected data subjects," the agency said. It further set a daily fine of 50,000 reais (about $9,100 as of July 18) in case of non-compliance. Last week, it gave Meta "five more days to p

As a vCISO, you are responsible for your client's cybersecurity strategy and risk governance. This incorporates multiple disciplines, from research to execution to reporting. Recently, we published a comprehensive playbook for vCISOs, "Your First 100 Days as a vCISO – 5 Steps to Success" , which covers all the phases entailed in launching a successful vCISO engagement, along with recommended actions to take, and step-by-step examples.  Following the success of the playbook and the requests that have come in from the MSP/MSSP community, we decided to drill down into specific parts of vCISO reporting and provide more color and examples. In this article, we focus on how to create compelling narratives within a report, which has a significant impact on the overall MSP/MSSP value proposition.  This article brings the highlights of a recent guided workshop we held, covering what makes a successful report and how it can be used to enhance engagement with your cyber security clients.

Brazil's data protection authority, Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados (ANPD), has temporarily banned Meta from processing users' personal data to train the company's artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. The ANPD said it found "evidence of processing of personal data based on inadequate legal hypothesis, lack of transparency, limitation of the rights of data subjects, and risks to children and adolescents." The decision follows the social media giant's update to its terms that allow it to use public content from Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram for AI training purposes. A recent report published by Human Rights Watch found that LAION-5B , one of the largest image-text datasets used to train AI models, contained links to identifiable photos of Brazilian children, putting them at risk of malicious deepfakes that could place them under even more exploitation and harm. Brazil has about 102 million active users, making it one of the largest ma

Meta's decision to offer an ad-free subscription in the European Union (E.U.) has faced a new setback after regulators accused the social media behemoth of breaching the bloc's competition rules by forcing users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them. The European Commission said the company's "pay or consent" advertising model is in contravention of the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ). "This binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta's social networks," the Commission said . It also noted that companies in gatekeeper roles must seek users' permission to combine their personal data between designated core platform services and other services (e.g., advertising), and that users who refuse to opt in should have access to a less personalized but equivalent alternative. On top of that, Meta's approach does not allow us

While some SaaS threats are clear and visible, others are hidden in plain sight, both posing significant risks to your organization. Wing's research indicates that an astounding 99.7% of organizations utilize applications embedded with AI functionalities. These AI-driven tools are indispensable, providing seamless experiences from collaboration and communication to work management and decision-making. However, beneath these conveniences lies a largely unrecognized risk: the potential for AI capabilities in these SaaS tools to compromise sensitive business data and intellectual property (IP). Wing's recent findings reveal a surprising statistic: 70% of the top 10 most commonly used AI applications may use your data for training their models. This practice can go beyond mere data learning and storage. It can involve retraining on your data, having human reviewers analyze it, and even sharing it with third parties. Often, these threats are buried deep in the fine print of Term

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an updated version of an Android banking trojan called Medusa that has been used to target users in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S. The new fraud campaigns, observed in May 2024 and active since July 2023, manifested through five different botnets operated by various affiliates, cybersecurity firm Cleafy said in an analysis published last week. The new Medusa samples feature a "lightweight permission set and new features, such as the ability to display a full-screen overlay and remotely uninstall applications," security researchers Simone Mattia and Federico Valentini said. Medusa, also known as TangleBot, is a sophisticated Android malware first discovered in July 2020 targeting financial entities in Turkey. It comes with capabilities to read SMS messages, log keystrokes, capture screenshots, record calls, share the device screen in real-time, and perform unauthorized fund transfers using overlay a

A new campaign is tricking users searching for the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) application for Windows into downloading a new adware family called AdsExhaust. "The adware is capable of exfiltrating screenshots from infected devices and interacting with browsers using simulated keystrokes," cybersecurity firm eSentire said in an analysis, adding it identified the activity earlier this month. "These functionalities allow it to automatically click through advertisements or redirect the browser to specific URLs, generating revenue for the adware operators." The initial infection chain involves surfacing the bogus website ("oculus-app[.]com") on Google search results pages using search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning techniques, prompting unsuspecting site visitors to download a ZIP archive ("oculus-app.EXE.zip") containing a Windows batch script. The batch script is designed to fetch a second batch script from a command-and-control (C2) se

Are your tags really safe with Google Tag Manager? If you've been thinking that using GTM means that your tracking tags and pixels are safely managed , then it might be time to think again. In this article we look at how a big-ticket seller that does business on every continent came unstuck when it forgot that you can't afford to allow tags to go unmanaged or become misconfigured.  Read the full case study here . Google Tag Manager saves website owners time and money. Its visual interface lets them attach tracking tags to their sites and then modify them as needed without the need to call a developer every time. Such tags gather the marketing and analytics data that power growth, and GTM makes them easier to manage, but with strict rules around data privacy to consider, you can't trust it completely; it needs active oversight. The ticket seller A case in point that we recently became aware of involves a global company that sells tickets to live events. With global operations i

Meta on Friday said it's delaying its efforts to train the company's large language models ( LLMs ) using public content shared by adult users on Facebook and Instagram in the European Union following a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). The company expressed disappointment at having to put its AI plans on pause, stating it had taken into account feedback from regulators and data protection authorities in the region. At issue is Meta's plan to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models without seeking users' explicit consent, instead relying on the legal basis of ' Legitimate Interests ' for processing first and third-party data in the region. These changes were expected to come into effect on June 26, before when the company said users could opt out of having their data used by submitting a request "if they wish." Meta is already utilizing user-generated content to train its AI in other markets such

An analysis of a hybrid biometric access system from Chinese manufacturer ZKTeco has uncovered two dozen security flaws that could be used by attackers to defeat authentication, steal biometric data, and even deploy malicious backdoors. "By adding random user data to the database or using a fake QR code, a nefarious actor can easily bypass the verification process and gain unauthorized access," Kaspersky said . "Attackers can also steal and leak biometric data, remotely manipulate devices, and deploy backdoors." The 24 flaws span six SQL injections, seven stack-based buffer overflows, five command injections, four arbitrary file writes, and two arbitrary file reads. A brief description of each vulnerability type is below - CVE-2023-3938 (CVSS score: 4.6) - An SQL injection flaw when displaying a QR code into the device's camera by passing a specially crafted request containing a quotation mark, thereby allowing an attacker to authenticate as any user in th

Apple has announced the launch of a "groundbreaking cloud intelligence system" called Private Cloud Compute (PCC) that's designed for processing artificial intelligence (AI) tasks in a privacy-preserving manner in the cloud. The tech giant described PCC as the "most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale." PCC coincides with the arrival of new generative AI (GenAI) features – collectively dubbed Apple Intelligence , or AI for short – that the iPhone maker unveiled in its next generation of software, including iOS 18 , iPadOS 18 , and macOS Sequoia . All of the Apple Intelligence features, both the ones that run on-device and those that rely on PCC, leverage in-house generative models trained on "licensed data, including data selected to enhance specific features, as well as publicly available data collected by our web-crawler, AppleBot." With PCC, the idea is to essentially offload complex requests that requir

Early in 2024, Wing Security released its State of SaaS Security report , offering surprising insights into emerging threats and best practices in the SaaS domain. Now, halfway through the year, several SaaS threat predictions from the report have already proven accurate. Fortunately, SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) solutions have prioritized mitigation capabilities to address many of these issues, ensuring security teams have the necessary tools to face these challenges head-on. In this article, we will revisit our predictions from earlier in the year, showcase real-world examples of these threats in action, and offer practical tips and best practices to help you prevent such incidents in the future. It's also worth noting the overall trend of an increasing frequency of breaches in today's dynamic SaaS landscape, leading organizations to demand timely threat alerts as a vital capability. Industry regulations with upcoming compliance deadlines are demanding similar time-sens

A recent study by Wing Security found that 63% of businesses may have former employees with access to organizational data, and that automating SaaS Security can help mitigate offboarding risks.  Employee offboarding is typically seen as a routine administrative task, but it can pose substantial security risks, if not handled correctly. Failing to quickly and thoroughly remove access for departing employees introduces serious insider threats, leaving a company vulnerable to multiple kinds of risks, such as data breaches, intellectual property theft, and regulatory non-compliance.  Today, where SaaS applications are easily onboarded and are commonly used by users within and beyond the organization, effective offboarding procedures are non-negotiable to prevent instances of data leaks and other cybersecurity issues. Let's explore insider risk management and user offboarding in more detail, looking at their security risks and discussing best practices for ensuring a secure organiz

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a critical security flaw in an artificial intelligence (AI)-as-a-service provider  Replicate  that could have allowed threat actors to gain access to proprietary AI models and sensitive information. "Exploitation of this vulnerability would have allowed unauthorized access to the AI prompts and results of all Replicate's platform customers," cloud security firm Wiz  said  in a report published this week. The issue stems from the fact that AI models are typically packaged in formats that allow arbitrary code execution, which an attacker could weaponize to perform cross-tenant attacks by means of a malicious model. Replicate makes use of an open-source tool called  Cog  to containerize and package machine learning models that could then be deployed either in a self-hosted environment or to Replicate. Wiz said that it created a rogue Cog container and uploaded it to Replicate, ultimately employing it to achieve remote code exec

Microsoft on Wednesday outlined its plans to deprecate Visual Basic Script (VBScript) in the second half of 2024 in favor of more advanced alternatives such as JavaScript and PowerShell. "Technology has advanced over the years, giving rise to more powerful and versatile scripting languages such as JavaScript and PowerShell," Microsoft Program Manager Naveen Shankar  said . "These languages offer broader capabilities and are better suited for modern web development and automation tasks." The tech giant originally  announced  its plans to gradually sunset VBScript in October 2023. The scripting language, also called Visual Basic Scripting Edition, was first introduced by Microsoft in 1996 as a Windows system component, offering users the ability to automate tasks and develop interactive web pages using Internet Explorer and Edge (in  Internet Explorer mode ). The announced deprecation plan consists of three phases, with the first phase kicking off in the second h