Recently, the US Department of Justice levied an indictment against three North Korean military hackers for their role in cyber-related crimes (see video below). These included (but not limited to): Targeting of and Cyberattacks on the Entertainment Industry: Such as the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November 2014 in retaliation for the farcical movie The Interview. Cyber-Enabled Heists from Banks: Attempts to steal more than $1.2 billion from banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, Malta and Africa. Creation and Deployment of Malicious Cryptocurrency Applications: Development of multiple malicious cryptocurrency applications including Celas Trade Pro, WorldBit-Bot, iCryptoFx, Union Crypto Trader, and more, which would provide the North Korean hackers a backdoor into the victims’ computers. Spear-Phishing Campaigns: Multiple spear-phishing campaigns that targeted employees of United States cleared defense contractors, energy companies, aerospace companies, technology companies, and more. Ransomware and Cyber-Enabled Extortion: Creation of the destructive WannaCry 2.0 ransomware in May 2017, and the extortion and attempted extortion of victim companies involving the theft of sensitive data and deployment of other ransomware. And it is to that last point that I thought a brief discussion on Ransomware would be warranted. Even Digital Batman’s own father was a victim of a ransomware attack that left him $400 poorer! In 2019 over 187.9 million users were affected by this bold malicious threat to online activities such as web‐surfing, e-commerce, gaming, and more. Put simply, this highly‐disruptive form of Internet‐viral malicious software (malware for short), not only infects your computer but holds all of your most precious files (i.e. photos, documents, apps, etc.) completely hostage—via permanently encrypting such files—until the victim is forced to pay a “ransom” to the criminal entity behind the attack for a decryption key to unlock the files. Usually to the tune of $100 ‐ $400 or more for...
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October 14, 2019Today’s Digital Tech & Industry section is all about the cornerstone of our civilization: cash! That’s right. For as long as there’s been human society there has been some form of currency. For most of human history it’s been more or less little bits of embossed metal called coins. However, in the 21st Century (thank goodness) we have Digital Mobile Payments, Cryptocurrencies, and Social Media Payments to enable all of our commercial indulgences! Hard to believe that there would be more than one way to pay but there it is. When we look back at 20th Century digital payments, the only examples that come to mind are wire transfers and direct deposit. However, now those seem so quiant compared to what we have going on today. A lot of hullabaloo is made over cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and others (e.g. NEO, EOS, and Monero); however, in a practical sense, trying to pay for say a pair of jeans or a latte with them still seems a bit too farfetched. But for millennials and Gen‐X/Yers, it’s as simple as taking out their smartphone (or raising their smartwatch) and tapping the POS (Point of Sale) terminal using their eWallets (i.e. Apple/Google/Samsung Pay). Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are all pretty much the same with only a few device‐specific differences. They all use the NFC (or Near‐Field Communication) chips inside them to enable “contactless” transactions that are funded by a person’s digital wallet (or eWallet) usually linked to a bank/credit account. Samsung Pay actually has another level of mobile payment called MST (Magnetic Secure Transaction) that enables users to use their phones just like swiping a credit card—good for older POS terminals that do not have an NFC chip reader. And this is all well and good for millions of transactions...