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LawBytes #30 deals this week with the new EDPS report on smart glasses privacy and the cybersecurity report issued by ENISA.
Cybersecurity – ENISA Threat Landscape report analyses the latest cyber threats
The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) is a centre of network and information security expertise for the EU, assisting member states in implementing relevant EU legislation and working to improve the resilience of Europe’s critical information infrastructure and networks.
On the occasion of the Data Protection Day on 28 January 2019, the ENISA released its Threat Landscape report 2018 analyzing the latest cyber threats across Europe.
According to the report, during the last year the cyber threat landscape changed significantly. The main trends relating to cyber threats in 2018 included the following:
- Mail and phishing messages have become the primary malware infection vector;
- Crypto-miners have become an important monetisation vector for cyber-criminals;
- The emergence of IoT environments is a concern due to missing protection mechanisms in low-end IoT devices and services;
Advances in defence have also been assessed: the development of active defence practices such as threat agent profiling and the combination of cyber threat intelligence led to a more efficient identification of attack practices and malicious artefacts.
As mentioned in a previous post (Read Cyber attacks business risk and crypto-assets challenges) the World Economic Forum considers Cybersecurity as the leading factor to be taken into account in order to fuel the fourth industrial revolution. Accordingly, companies shall adopt a comprehensive legal and technical cybersecurity action plan to maximize success opportunities offered by modern technologies while lowering cyber-risks.
If you are interested in this topic don’t miss our previous posts: “ENISA publishes new guidelines on security in the Industry 4.0 sector” and “NIS Directive applicable, is your cybersecurity plan compliant?“.
Privacy – EDPS analyses data protection issues arising from smart glasses
Smart glasses are one of the coolest and maybe most useful applications of wearable devices. Such augmented reality based technology can bring a massive efficiency boost to business processes among several sectors.
Still, their use has been discussed controversially because they also are considered to yield a high potential to undermine the privacy of individuals, especially where not properly privacy-friendly designed.
On this topic the European Data Protection Supervisor recently issued a report exploring implications of smart glasses for privacy and data protection, assessing the state of play of the main smart glass manufacturers, and providing an outline on its use and possible future applications.
The report highlights and clarifies official positions on related privacy and data protection issues and future developments and in my opinion it provides an extremely interesting point of view by EU privacy authority, which should definitely be taken into consideration by potential manufacturers and players of the IoT industry.
If you are interested about this topic be sure not to miss our previous post: “Top 3 predictions on AI and IoT for 2019“.
