online privacy

Your home address.

Your cell phone number.

Your email address.

Judges, courts, police departments and healthcare providers expect results when they contract with an online privacy protection provider. They recognize the dangers of having personally identifiable information (PII) on their personnel easily available on thousands of websites, and expect the company they hire to address this serious issue.

That’s what we do. But we can’t say the same for other providers.

One of our more prominent competitors says they’ll remove your PII from data brokers – but sometimes they can’t unless you do their job for them.

To pay or not to pay – that is the question regarding ransomware attacks against municipal services. But if some states have their way, victims may no longer have a choice.

Two states – North Carolina and Florida – have passed legislation prohibiting public ransomware payments, and other states are considering similar measures. But it’s too early to tell yet whether such laws have had an impact. In the less than three years since the North Carolina bill passed, attacks have dipped slightly and still number in the hundreds.

Do you live in California? Is your company based there? Lucky you. You not only get to enjoy great weather and great beaches and Disneyland – you also get to protect your personally identifiable information (PII) from being shared or sold by data brokers.

So why aren’t more of you doing something about that?

The message is finally sinking in.

We’ve been warning for more than a decade about the widespread dissemination of personally identifiable information (PII) about all of us on thousands of websites, available to anyone who asks for it.

For judges and police and others in high-risk, public-facing professions, accessibility to that content is life-threatening. For everyone else, it creates exposure to identity theft scams, annoying robocalls, and phishing attacks that extort money from panicked individuals who are told that a loved one is in danger.

“Thank you, but we already have identity theft protection.”

Our salespeople occasionally hear this response from decision-makers at prestigious national organizations. They believe identity theft protection is the same as online privacy protection, and assume that having one means they don't need the other.

The Crucial Difference

Think of it this way:

Colorado's new privacy legislation went into effect on July 1, joining several other states in enhancing privacy protections. That’s the good news. And now that residents in these states have a right to opt out of having their personal information collected, shared and sold, the next step is to find a way to make that happen, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Vulnerable to ransomware? It’s not your servers – it’s your people

That’s the title of an article written by Ironwall by Incogni's CEO Ron Zayas that appeared as the top story on the DOTmed HealthCareBusiness News website, a trusted healthcare industry resource with a substantial daily readership.

Last month, a social worker in upstate New York was severely beaten while on her way to perform a home visit. Tragically, she later died from her injuries.

This is a heartbreaking but essential reminder of the dangers social workers face every day, and the necessity for social services agencies and other human service organizations to take preventative steps to keep these professionals safe.

If you guessed ransomware, you are correct.

But wait – if you pay the ransom, doesn’t that mean your systems get restored and nothing is lost? Unfortunately, that’s not the case, as a new report confirms.

The findings, based on a survey of 1,200 organizations that experienced a ransomware attack, found that an average of 43% of compromised data disappears forever, whether the ransom is paid or not.