Technology

In early August 2021, T-Mobile experienced a hack that exposed the sensitive information of over 50 million of the company's current, former, and prospective customers. Information such as names, birthdates, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, and beyond was compromised, leaving the company reeling for answers. Those answers came when a 21-year-old US citizen named John Binns admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he was the one behind the attack. According to Binns, he was able to gain access to a T-Mobile data center located near East Wenatchee, Washington via an unprotected router, enabling him [...]

Given that biotechnology companies are all competing to treat the same conditions, biotech is one of the market's most competitive industries. Nevertheless, more and more biotech companies are now becoming open to increased collaboration with other companies. While collaboration is great for innovation, it does come with a certain degree of risk in an industry where competition is so fierce. The increased level of collaboration between biotech companies largely began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moving forward, though, it doesn't seem that collaboration between companies will be limited to combating COVID-19. In fact, the [...]

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, semiconductor shortages were an issue that was already starting to affect companies in a wide range of industries. When COVID-19 came along, though, and ground factories all over the globe to a halt - creating worldwide supply chains disruptions the likes of which we have never had to deal with in the modern era - the impact of these shortages was magnified to the nth degree. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris is working to build relationships with the countries that the US especially relies on for its semiconductor demands by [...]

Health apps have become wildly popular in the past decade, serving as a way for people to more easily monitor their diet, exercise, sleep patterns, and beyond. The fact that many of these applications collect sensitive personal information from their users, though, is cause for security concerns. Now, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning that any app that collects personal health information from its users must notify those users if their data is breached or otherwise shared with third parties without the user's permission. Since 2009, the Health Breach Notification Rule has required [...]

One would like to think that the government agencies in charge of storing some of our nation's most sensitive information would employ the latest and most effective cybersecurity protocols available today. According to a recent report by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, though, this is sadly not the case. In this damning report, eight federal agencies were shown to have such poor cybersecurity that they received a D grade. Three other agencies, meanwhile, received a C grade, while only one agency - the Department of Homeland Security - was able to earn a [...]

As governments across the world are strengthening their efforts to crack down on money laundering, more and more financial institutions are finding themselves in the crosshairs. Recently, the British digital bank Monzo became the latest target of an anti-money laundering (AML) investigation, with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announcing in May of this year that it was investigating Monzo for potential breaches of British AML rules and financial crime controls.  The investigation alleges that the breaches of AML rules took place between October 2018 and April 2021. Currently, the investigation is still in its early stages. [...]

For years, financial institutions have been required to abide by Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. These regulations require financial institutions to make an effort to verify the identity, suitability, and associated risks of anyone they do business with. While the overall financial market has been abiding by these regulations for some time now, the rapidly emerging cryptocurrency market is still lightyears behind. The same privacy controls that make cryptocurrency so attractive to many people also make cryptocurrency a prime target for money laundering schemes. In 2019 alone, an estimated $3 billion was laundered through cryptocurrency exchanges. [...]

A recent consumer survey has revealed that just 28% of customers claim to have a strong understanding of the healthcare services that are covered by their health insurance plan. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has created even more confusion by forcing countless customers to rework their healthcare plans, healthcare revenue cycle leaders are putting new emphasis on the importance of explaining the coverage and out-of-pocket expenses associated with various healthcare plans.  There are a number of different strategies that revenue cycle leaders are hoping to adopt moving forward in order to create more transparency and strengthen financial [...]

Stripe - a digital payments company with a similar business model to PayPal - has recently made a major acquisition designed to expand on the products and services that the company offers. In order to add a suite of cloud-based tax services to the payment services that Stripe provides, the company has purchased TaxJar - a popular service that allows for the automatic calculation, reporting, and filing of sales taxes.  While the details of the purchase have not been fully disclosed, we know that TaxJar was valued at $179 million the last time the company raised [...]

In what is believed to be the first time that a national law enforcement agency conducted mass arrests targeting a ransomware group, the National Police of Ukraine recently arrested six individuals alleged to be members of the notorious Clop ransomware gang.  Despite these arrests, though, Clop remains in operation and has responded to the arrests by doxing two new victims. Doxing is one of the many strong-arm tactics that ransomware operations can use to leverage money out of the organizations that they target. If the ransom money being demanded isn't paid, doxing punishes the victim of the [...]

The life sciences industry, like almost every other industry in existence, has become increasingly reliant on AI technology in recent years. However, reliance on AI as a means of data analysis in the life sciences industry was ramped up to an entirely new level during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  From tracking infection rates to determining important risk factors, healthcare providers, government agencies, and other organizations within the life sciences field were burdened with a wide range of responsibilities - and given the serious nature of a global pandemic, time was of the essence. In [...]

Document collection during litigation is often an expensive and time-consuming process. With the right approach, though, electronic document collection has the potential to both speed up and reduce the expense of this all-important process. With that said, there's a lot that goes into successful electronic document collection, and here are some of the best practices that you will certainly want to follow: To start, it's essential to thoroughly analyze your project to pinpoint the primary issues in the case, the type of data that you will need to collect, and the sources where that data will [...]

In what was arguably the most high-profile ransomware attack to ever target a US company, foreign actors were able to successfully shut down Colonial Pipeline and force a fuel shortage across the Southeast. Although the pipeline is now back online and operations have been fully restored, the reality of just how vulnerable US infrastructure is to such attacks is now concerningly clear. According to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, this attack "has been a wakeup call on how actors anywhere in the world can impact us right here at home." It's an attack that has certainly exposed [...]

The coronavirus pandemic came as a massive blow to the global supply chain, creating disruptions all over the world and leaving companies scrambling to keep the ship afloat. In response, many organizations have turned to digital supply chain solutions to help them streamline their operations and become more agile and resilient when faced with such supply chain disruptions. At the end of the whirlwind of a year that 2020 turned out to be, 110 supply chain and manufacturing executives from companies in a wide range of industries were asked to complete a 2020 digital supply chain [...]

When you think of automation, robots assembling products in a factory is likely the first thing that comes to mind. Today, however, automation extends far beyond performing repetitive tasks in a factory setting, and more and more companies are using automation to streamline their business in ways we might not have imagined just a few years ago. Intelligent process automation entails using software to automate various processes in an office setting such as approving expense requests, organizing files and emails, scheduling meetings, and beyond. While "bots" are assigned to perform these tasks, these aren't the same [...]