De Eerste Kamer is gisteren akkoord gegaan met het wetsvoorstel Wet gegevensverwerking en meldplicht cybersecurity die aanbieders van vitale infrastructuur verplicht om digitale veiligheidsincidenten en datalekken bij de staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie te melden.

Bij aanbieders van vitale infrastructuur moet worden gedacht aan energienetwerkbeheerders, drinkwaterbedrijven, telecombedrijven, banken en Rijkswaterstaat.

De melding aan de staatssecretaris wordt in behandeling genomen door het Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC). Het NCSC kan zo de getroffen aanbieder helpen en andere aanbieders waarschuwen en daarmee de schade beperken.

Not only are cloud-delivered, software-defined network solutions progressing the healthcare industry by introducing network mobility to mobile clinics, ambulatory applications, and traveling doctors, but these network solutions are also improving the security of patients’ private information.

Leaders in the healthcare field recognize that these evolving network technologies are necessary for ensuring and affording compliance.

Compliance challenges include keeping medical and financial data accessible yet secure and making the most of the limited resources in the face of potentially expensive solutions. Healthcare organizations must be proactive in their designs to ensure compliance, rather than being reactive after the fact.

The German military's aviation safety chief has launched a new initiative against cyber threats, citing research that he said shows hackers can commandeer military airplanes with the help of equipment that costs about 5,000 euros ($5,700).

A defense ministry spokesman told Reuters that development of new "aviation cyber expertise" would cover everything from raising consciousness about cyber threats to technical research projects and equipping aircraft with protective systems.

State Secretary Katrin Suder had backed the idea, which Major General Ansgar Rieks, head of the German Military Aviation Authority, proposed in a letter in June, the spokesman said.

A new Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) study, which involved a survey of more than 400 IT and cybersecurity professionals, found that 72 percent feel cybersecurity analytics and operations is more difficult today than it was two years ago, and that the rapidly evolving threat landscape and growing volumes of security alarms are the most common challenges facing enterprises today.

Despite increased spending, organizations are still looking for ways to increase efficiency and improve risk management. Research revealed that 31 percent of organizations are looking to use threat intelligence to help automate remediation tasks.

According to ESG, 89 percent of organizations use external threat intelligence, but IT professionals are still feeling that cyber adversaries are moving faster than network defenders can keep up.

The CEO of one of the world's largest security companies was briefly declared bankrupt this week after having his identity stolen.
Swedish firm Securitas confirmed that chief executive Alf Goransson was declared bankrupt on Monday by the Stockholm District Court after a fraudulent application was made using stolen personal information.

The decision was reversed on Wednesday at the CEO's request.
Securitas said that Goransson was not contacted by the court prior to its initial ruling, and the incident has been reported to police.

There were other consequences. Securitas said in a press release that the Swedish Companies Registration Office had de-registered Goransson as the company's CEO after the court ruling.

Viewpost surveyed a cross-section of 1,000 U.S.-based consumers, finding that overall, 80 percent of Americans are in support of payments technologies and currencies, including tools like sensor fingerprinting, facial recognition, retinal scanning and voice control, as well as currencies like bitcoin.

Electronic payments have become commonplace today, with nearly 51 percent of people reporting that they are paid electronically via direct deposit, and an increasing comfort level with these paperless transactions appears significant in driving consumers’ interest in even more sophisticated forms of electronic payment.

Respondents are unenthusiastic about traditional paper checks, as one-third of them think that paper checks will die within five years, and 83 percent believe they will be completely eliminated within the next 20 years.

Killing Cortana isn’t as easy as it used to be.

When Windows 10 first released, turning off Cortana was as simple as flipping a switch in the digital assistant’s settings, but Microsoft removed the option in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Now there’s no obvious way to disable Cortana—but it is possible using not-so-obvious methods.

Completely eradicating Cortana requires a quick and easy registry edit, which we’ll detail here. If you don’t want Cortana spying on you but also detest the idea of mucking with your PC’s deepest software innards, PCWorld’s guide to privacy-boosting Cortana tweaks can show you how to limit the personal information it sends Microsoft. Cortana will still run in the background with limited functionality if you don’t perform the registry edit, though.

Facebook has shut down pages offering marijuana for sale in Alaska, angering the businesses that run them, who say they were licensed to sell it.

It highlights the problems faced by social networks trying to set boundaries for what users can post. The National Cannabis Industry Association said it was seeking "clearer guidelines" from Facebook.

Affected businesses should appeal to have their accounts restored, the NCIA told the Associated Press news agency. The problem had affected all of the nine US states that had legalised recreational and medical cannabis, deputy director Taylor West added.

Handwriting will never be the same again. A new glove developed at the University of California, San Diego, can convert the 26 letters of American Sign Language (ASL) into text on a smartphone or computer screen.

Because it’s cheaper and more portable than other automatic sign language translators on the market, it could be a game changer. People in the deaf community will be able to communicate effortlessly with those who don’t understand their language. It may also one day fine-tune our control of robots.

ASL is a language all of its own, but few people outside the deaf community speak it. For many signing is their only language, as learning written English, for example, can be difficult without having the corresponding sounds to go with it.