As organizations bring their employees back to the workplace, many are looking to leverage location technology as a means to increase safety. Return-to-work solutions ranging from digital contact tracing and social distancing monitoring to sanitation alerts and occupancy analytics are being explored and embraced in varying degrees around the world. However, it’s imperative that any technology deployed works a double shift to also provide value in the post-pandemic times. The same location technology infrastructure used to address infection prevention and mitigation can be used to complement and enhance traditional security efforts.
COVID-19 has caused havoc on the schools across the U.S. In the spring, school districts did whatever they could to provide the tools to students to get through the end of the school year. As schools are starting up around the country this month and next month, the challenge school IT departments are having is how to secure all of the devices distributed to students. Here, we talk to Jake Kouns, CEO and CISO for Risk Based Security, where he leads the company’s technology strategy and is responsible for product vision and leadership in the security industry.
A recent survey conducted among consumers and IT professionals by SecureAge Technology suggests that a majority of these groups believe COVID-19 contact-tracing technologies put individuals' personally identifiable information (PII) at risk. Generally, however, both these groups believed that these types of tools could help mitigate the spread of the disease, and would support a nationwide rollout of the technology in spite of privacy concerns. So, are contact tracing apps a 'necessary evil'? If so, what can be done to make these apps safer to protect PII and the privacy of the public? Here, we talk to Paul Kohler, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at S3 Consulting.
As the United States continues to struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have been searching for creative solutions to help stop the spread of this virus. One of these solutions includes thermal temperature screening checker systems, and while these systems have been implemented in many places of business, hospitals, airports and schools across the country, there seems to be considerable misconceptions about the camera technology and its effectiveness. Here are some of the most common misconceptions.
With more Americans expected to do their holiday shopping online during the COVID-19 pandemic, US agencies and cybersecurity leaders are urging all consumers to be on alert for holiday shopping scams and cyber threats, which historically spike during the holiday season. Here, we talk to Michael Rezek, Vice President of Business Development and Cybersecurity Strategy at Accedian, about the technologies retailers need to adopt to ensure a smooth holiday shopping season, how to see the warning signs for bad actors, how to proactively manage them and what to do to prevent them in the first place.
Before the pandemic, buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS) became hugely popular to consumers who didn’t want to have to wait for items to be delivered, pay for shipping or for those that wanted to avoid shopping in store altogether. However, as retailers adopted BOPIS, its rise flipped a switch and increased opportunities for fraudsters, enabling them to use stolen credit card information to make purchases online and then simply arrive at the store to pick up the item. So what can retailers do to ensure their customers are staying safe? Here are a few things to consider:
IBM X-Force has released a report on malicious cyber actors targeting the COVID-19 cold chain—an integral part of delivering and storing a vaccine at safe temperatures. Impersonating a biomedical company, cyber actors are sending phishing and spearphishing emails to executives and global organizations involved in vaccine storage and transport to harvest account credentials. The emails have been posed as requests for quotations for participation in a vaccine program.
The risk level to the global workforce has reached its highest since 2016 according to the findings of the International SOS Risk Outlook 2021. The outlook reveals findings from the Business Resilience Trends survey of over 1,400 risk professionals across 99 countries, carried out by Ipsos MORI. It also brings together insights from the Workforce Resilience Council and extensive International SOS proprietary data.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced New York's plan for combating COVID-19 this winter. Specifically, the winter plan consists of five targeted strategies focused on mitigating the spread of the virus and bolstering New York State hospital preparedness.
As the pandemic continues to unfold, many schools have chosen to conduct classes virtually rather than in-person and school buildings have been left empty for durations longer than ever before. With less staff consistently working on school grounds, it can be easy to miss a potentially costly and time consuming emergency. Situations like a leaking pipe or a malfunctioning freezer can quickly go from a minor issue to a major problem if not dealt with as soon as possible. Without physical eyes on these situations, schools need to consider leaning more heavily on technology that can be their eyes and ears, such as environmental monitoring technologies that can allow administrators to monitor their school at all times, even when they’re not on-site.