In recent years we've seen several companies suffer from hacks of various magnitudes. Over time, we've witnessed the growth of what could be described as best practices in terms of how to respond.

The typical arc goes something like this:

The hack is discovered.

Google relies on crowd sourcing to help keep its maps up to date.  There's no other approach that even comes close to being feasible.  Sure, Google has employees on the job, roving the nation's highways, byways, and back streets. Even if the company employed ten times the number they're currently using, their maps wouldn't be nearly as accurate as they've become via crowd sourcing.

There's trouble brewing at Amazon, although details are sketchy about how much trouble there might be.

Recently, the company sent the following message to some of its customers:

"Hello, We're contacting you to let you know that our website inadvertently disclosed your email address due to a technical error.

In recent months, Google has taken steps to tighten up its processes so that fewer poisoned apps find their way into the Google Play Store.  In addition to that, the company has stepped up its efforts to ruthlessly track down and remove malicious apps whenever and wherever they are found.

The mobile payment platform Venmo (owned by Paypal) has a fraud problem.  That's not exactly new.  The company has struggled with fraud issues for a long time, but recently, things have gotten out of control.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the company reported losses of $40 million in just the first three months of 2018, and there's no end to the red ink in sight.

Bad news for computer users everywhere.  Researchers at the University of California in Riverside have discovered that GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are vulnerable to side-channel attacks like Spectre and Meltdown, which have been plaguing Intel CPU's for the better part of a year.

In the world of data security, cryptocurrency mining software is often overlooked or discounted as a threat because it doesn't do serious harm to the infected system.

It bleeds off computing resources, putting them to work for the miners who control the software, working for them to solve complex cryptographic puzzles which generate revenue for the hackers.

Over the course of the holiday season this year, more than half of the working adults in the United States will be traveling with one or more of their work devices.

Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of those fully appreciate the data security risks inherent in travel, which is a grim reality that could put your company and its data at risk.

Target is the latest company to fall victim to a simple but effective Twitter-Bitcoin scam.  The scam is about as straightforward as it gets:  A tweet gets sent out by a well-respected brand or prominent individual.  It contains a link which is likely to be clicked on, given that it's from a prominent individual or well-respected brand.

SailPoint has recently published some new research that will probably give you a headache, if you're a business owner.

It's been common knowledge for at least a few years now that employees are a company's weakest link when it comes to data security.