What will China do in 2022?

China’s Xi Jinping seems likely to have his third term in office ratified by the Communist Party Congress in 2022. What could that mean for China, and for the rest of the world?

 

10 worst password snafus of 2021

Using strong and secure passwords is sound advice not just for your own personal accounts but for any accounts or services you use on the job. In fact, a weak password can create far more trouble for an organization that holds user data and other sensitive information. To show just how much trouble it can create, password manager Dashlane has unveiled a list of the worst password-related security incidents for 2021.

For its 2021's Worst Password Offenders list, Dashlane looked at the year's 10 worst security mishaps that involved hacked or stolen passwords. These fiascos show that advice about creating a strong password is still being ignored by too many individuals and too many organizations.

Read the full list HERE.

Building better blockchains is surprisingly hard

According to its fans, crypto is the key to paradise, particularly the financial kind. Greedy intermediaries, such as banks, will be replaced by smart contracts (self-executing rules) that run on blockchains (distributed databases). This will give rise to efficient and innovative financial services, collectively called “decentralized finance” (DeFi).

The foundations of this structure are shaky, however. Today’s blockchains may be masterworks of coding, but they are also fiendishly complex, energy-hungry and, perhaps counterintuitively, centralized. Despite years of work, crypto developers are still trying to fully overcome the trade-offs inherent in the technology. 

Read the the full article in The Economist HERE.

Deutsche Bank’s ESG executive slams industry’s greenwashing practices

Kamran Khan, Deutsche Bank’s head of ESG for Asia Pacific, urged the financial services industry to step up its game and take responsibility for its use of ESG and net-zero labels. 

At a time when the possible ramifications of greenwashing practices multiply rapidly, Khan said there is a growing need to put a “reality check” and impose the authority of “saying no” to colleagues or clients trying to misleadingly attach the ESG label to their products. 

“When you look at it, any company can make a net-zero commitment, and come up with a nice little PowerPoint on how they’re going to move from today to 2030 or 2050,” Khan said at a Sibos 2021 panel last October.

Read the full article on bobsguide. HERE.

Bitcoin is setting the world on fire

Bitcoin was really hot in 2021, but not the way you might think. 

I'm talking about the massive energy and carbon footprint that has bloomed up as the Bitcoin network continues to grow. We've finally started to pay attention to it in 2021, with Elon Musk calling its energy consumption "insane," and calling into question its usefulness (and interestingly neither Tesla nor Musk have divested themselves of Bitcoin holdings).

It's true that Bitcoin uses an absurd amount of energy, and 2021 was the year that it truly skyrocketed, rising from somewhere around a 77 TWh/year forecast in the beginning of the year to more than 200 TWh/year by December 25. At this point, the Bitcoin network is burning through the same amount of power and fuel as some medium-sized countries, and an individual transaction eats up more power than an average U.S. household uses in 70 days!

Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, need something big, like a transition to proof-of-stake, if they're going to survive a larger global transition to greener energy.

Top 10 tech trends that will shape the coming decade, according to McKinsey

McKinsey predicts the 10 tech trends will shape the next decade. These include digital connectivity, distributed infrastructure and next-generation computing.

We’ll experience more technological progress in the coming decade than we did in the preceding 100 years put together, says McKinsey. And just 10 tech trends will dominate this shifting landscape.
 

Understanding the effects of this change can help avoid nasty shocks to the system, for both individuals and organizations. Businesses that are making the most of advances in tech are also in a good place to make the most in terms of return on their investments.

Read the full article HERE.

 

Conti Ransomware Gang Has Full Log4Shell Attack Chain

The Conti ransomware gang, which last week became the first professional crimeware outfit to adopt and weaponize the Log4Shell vulnerability, has now built up a holistic attack chain.

The sophisticated Russia-based Conti group – which Palo Alto Networks has called “one of the most ruthless” of dozens of ransomware groups currently known to be active – was in the right place at the right time with the right tools when Log4Shell hit the scene 10 days ago, security firm Advanced Intelligence (AdvIntel) said in a report shared with Threatpost on Thursday.

You can read the Threatpost story HERE.