New consumer privacy laws and innovative fraudsters have given security professionals much to do in a supercharged digital economy. As our digital footprints widen, bad actors are finding increasingly sophisticated ways to access troves of personal information and sensitive data.

The Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) passed yesterday in the state's senate and will go into effect in July 2023 – creating an additional  regulation that organizations must comply with or face hefty fines and eroding consumer trust. 

On March 15, 2021, the California Attorney General’s office announced that the Office of Administrative Law has approved the Attorney General’s proposed changes to the CCPA regulations. The new regulations make three general changes relating to the right to opt out of sales and one change to authorized agent requests. In addition, the Attorney General’s press release reaffirms that enforcement activities are proceeding.

Four different states (Washington, Virginia, Oklahoma and Minnesota) are on track to enact new data privacy laws in 2021, but are businesses ready to comply with state-by-state regulations? This patchwork of legislation could leave companies confused and vulnerable to legal action if they are unprepared. 

Consumers flocked to Amazon to indulge in Prime Day deals and start their holiday shopping early this year – specifically, home office gadgets and home connected devices like smart assistants, tablets, doorbells and more. And overall, retail sales continue to grow to near pre-pandemic levels with electronics a big part of it as consumers stock their home office and arm their kids with devices now needed for virtual school. But are consumers thinking about their “home cybersecurity?”

A new global study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and TransUnion has overwhelmingly found the key to whether or not companies go out of business hinges on providing consumers friction-right digital transactions. Nearly 85% of global executives surveyed as part of the study said they believe smooth digital transactions are “essential to business survival” rather than merely a competitive edge. 

According to data extracted and analyzed by Atlas VPN, the United States residents reported 168,818 imposter scam cases amounting to $299.9 million in losses in the first half of 2020 with a median loss of $694. That is more than two times less than in H1 2019 when the US consumers reported 355,866 imposter fraud cases.

In Spring 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to spread across the globe, a survey of approximately 250 U.S. consumers commissioned by Awake Security found that the two threats from the DHS list that worry Americans most are cyberattacks on core infrastructure (electric, water, transportation etc.) and cyberattacks on corporations. Diving deeper into the results surfaces something that is contrary to the popular narrative: consumers take responsibility for their personal cybersecurity and even help out those around them. They hold the government and enterprises ultimately accountable, but also understand the role each individual has to play.

The Federal Trade Commission launched a new tool that explores data about problems military consumers may experience in the marketplace. For the first time, data about reports the FTC has received from active duty service members and veterans will be available online in an interactive dashboard at ftc.gov/explore data.