data privacy expert Archives - John Sileo, Cyber Security Training

Data Privacy Expert on the Irony of Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year

Dictionary.com has chosen its “word of the year”. Thank the etymological gods it’s not selfie, twerk or hashtag. No, this year’s most relevant, most searched word is:

Privacy.

Call me geeky, but this is happy news to privacy experts, because it raises consciousness that this stuff (your right to keep certain information to your self) actually matters.

And consciousness has definitely been raised in 2013:

Data security and privacy experts everywhere should thank Edward Snowden for exposing the NSA surveillance programs that monitor every American’s phone calls, Facebook posts and emails for signs of terrorism (and any other data they care to intercept).
Thanks to SnapChat for making deleted photos recoverable (despite claims they disappear).
Additional kudos to Google Glass for raising awareness on how easy it is to capture intellectual property as criminals videotape their way through Fortune 500 offices, record ATM PIN numbers of the bank customer in front of them and deploy instant facial recognition software in a variety of social engineering schemes.

Higher Education Features Cyber Security Expert John Sileo

Universities perfect learning environment for data security

Higher Ed Organizations are among the highest risk groups to become victims of identity theft and data breach. Because students are relative “beginners” when it comes to personal finances, because university environments are predicated on trust and credibility, and because of the recent progress towards a mobile-centric, social-networking-dominated campus, higher education’s digital footprint is constantly exposed to manipulation.

“The most engaging speaker I’ve ever heard – period.” Debbie Bumpous, NSU Chief Information Technology Officer speaking about John Sileo

“John Sileo was the secret sauce in launching our cyber security awareness program” – University of Massachusetts Director of IT

Data privacy not really a big part of Big Data

Big Data is an economic juggernaut as well as a ripe opportunity to forfeit your profitable data privacy. Businesses and consumers should consider the potential costs – and what they hope to get in return.

Not so long ago, the internet was a very different place. Users were advised never to give out their names or addresses, to avoid talking to people they don’t know and to keep all personal identifiers secret. Data privacy was something we were thinking about constantly, especially when it came to sensitive information. Cyberspace was thought first and foremost to be a place filled with strangers where we must tread with caution.

Today, we’ve swung too far in the other direction. We all but depend upon the internet to connect, to make ourselves public, to be seen by as many people as possible all over the world. Entire sites exist to promote us, and the sort of things we used to carefully consider before disclosing, we now sign away without a second thought, completely unaware of what we are putting on display.