Cybercriminals, like infections, adapt to their environment. Given that the coronavirus pandemic began, cybersecurity problems to the FBI’s Web Criminal activity Complaint Center have quadrupled
Not only are governments and businesses more exposed, but people– stressed out from remote work, joblessness, and/or homeschooling– are more susceptible to frauds on everything from government support checks to online shopping I’ve been deluged with emails purportedly from Netflix asking me to update my billing information; the sender plainly believes cabin fever-infected recipients will be so desperate not to lose access to streaming they’ll click without a second thought.
WIRED OPINION
ABOUT
Sylvia Acevedo is the CEO of Lady Scouts U.S.A. and a longtime supporter for underserved neighborhoods and ladies’ and ladies’s causes. Acevedo started her career as a rocket scientist at the Jet Propulsion Labs, where she worked on the Voyager mission’s flyby of Jupiter and its moons and the Solar Polar/Probe objectives. She is the author of Path to the Stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist
The rise is no mishap: Bad actors go where access is easy or where benefits surpass dangers, and the pandemic is ripe for exploitation. Cybercrime was with us long before and it will be with us long after we lastly throw away our masks. This is especially true of cybercrime targeting women and kids.
This brings us back to access. Let’s look at the internet of things. It was established mainly without the input of females in leadership positions. Among the major US tech companies, none have more than 32 percent of ladies in leadership roles: Amazon27 percent, Facebook32 percent, Apple29 percent, Google26 percent, and Microsoft19 percent.
The outcome is that the IoT does not have elements of security and security that are often top of mind for females however maybe not as salient for males. Much of the tech being established does not take women’s and children’s wants and needs into air conditioning
