Apple Watch Series 4 Has ECG Heart Monitor & All Day Battery

If your heart's beating faster, the new Apple Watch Series 4 will be able to tell. The latest Apple Watch packs several new features, with the most obvious change on its surface: a redesigned face to put much more screen on your wrist.

The tech giant on Wednesday unveiled its new Apple Watch Series 4 from the Steve Jobs Theater in its Apple Park headquarters. The new watch has a larger face, and features its own Electrocardiogram and Fall Detection. It'll also have new speakers and a processor chip that boasts much faster speeds for the watch.

It'll start at $399 for the Series 4 model, $499 for the LTE model. Preorders will start on Sept. 14, and the watches will be available on Sept. 21.

The watch's accelerometer and gyroscope has improved so that the watch can now predict if the person wearing it is falling. If there's an accident, the watch can prompt a call to emergency services, for example.

"Fall detection is a feature that we hope you never need but it's really nice to know it's there," Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer said.

The speakers are now also 50 percent louder, while the screen is 30 percent larger. Its new chip, the S4, will have the watch performing twice as fast. With the larger screen, you can have up to 8 shortcuts on the screen for apps. The speakers will now be 50 percent louder for phone calls and interacting with Siri. The battery life boasts 18 hours, and outdoor workout time has increased to 6 hours, Apple said.

The feature that received the most applause in the crowd came in response to the electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) feature, which allows wearers to have a heart sensor on their wrists.

"The biggest feature add to Watch besides the larger viewable image area was its heart health features, in particular, its ability to perform an ECG and also can detect AFib. Add that to fall detection and notification and I can see kids buying one for their parents and grandparents," Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, said.

It'll come in three colors for its aluminum finish, in silver, gold and space gray. The stainless steel versions have polished black and space black, as well as a new gold color.

British Airways Hacked – 380,000 Payment Cards Compromised

British Airways has confirmed a data breach that exposed personal details and credit-card numbers of up to 380,000 customers and lasted for more than two weeks.

In a statement released by British Airways on Thursday, customers booking flights on its website (ba.com) and British Airways mobile app between late 21 August and 5 September were compromised.

The airline advised customers who made bookings during that 15 days period and believe they may have been affected by this incident to "contact their banks or credit card providers and follow their recommended advice."

British Airways stated on its Twitter account that personal details stolen in the breach included their customers' names and addresses, along with their financial information, but the company assured its customers that the hackers did not get away with their passport numbers or travel details.

The company also said that saved cards on its website and mobile app are not compromised in the breach. Only cards that have been used by you to make booking payments during the affected period are stolen.

"We are investigating, as a matter of urgency, the theft of customer data from our website and our mobile app," the company said in a statement. "The stolen data did not include travel or passport details."

Although the statement released by the did not mention the number of affected customers, the company's spokesperson confirmed to the media that some 380,000 payment cards were compromised in the breach.

Also currently, it is not clear how the data breach occurred, but some media outlets are reporting that the breach was identified when "a third party noticed some unusual activity" and informed the company about it.

British Airways also informed the police and the Information Commissioner and currently reaching out to affected customers directly.

However, the company assured its customers that the security breach has now been resolved, and its website is working normally and is now safe for passengers to check-in online, and book flights online.

The National Crime Agency is aware of the British Airways data breach and is "working with partners to assess the best course of action."

Winter is Coming... Free Credit Freezes for all Consumers!

Starting September 21, 2018, credit freezes will now be free for all Americans.

Most U.S. consumers have a credit report, whether they know it or not AND whether they use it or not. These reports are generated by the three major credit reporting agencies, or CRAs, based on activity associated with buying and borrowing. When you first start out, you might have “no credit” and therefore not have a credit report, but multiple lender requests into your credit background can generate a report in your name.

For many years, credit reports were a good way to keep tabs on your financial identity; if someone had stolen your identity and tried to open new accounts or lines of credit, you might find that information on there. At the same time, people who were already victims of identity theft have been urged to put “freezes” or “alerts” on their credit reports to keep thieves from opening more accounts in their names.

Freezes mean that the CRA cannot release your credit report to a lender, which is supposed to prevent a new account from being opened. The problem for many consumers is that freezing your account incurred a small fee, one that ranged from $2 to $10 depending on the agency. “Thawing” your account if you wanted to open a legitimate credit line also could result in a fee, as did refreezing once the process is finished.

Now, Congress has been called upon to take action in light of the recent Equifax data breach. This single event exposed more than 148 million consumers’ complete identities to hackers. As a result, Equifax offered free credit freezes for a limited time, but lawmakers came up with another solution. Thanks in part to grassroots advocacy efforts, the House has passed a bill that will waive the credit freeze fee for all consumers from all three credit reporting agencies.

This bill, which has been signed into law by the White House, will not go into effect until September 21st, so in the meantime, consumers need to remain vigilant about protecting themselves:

1. If you haven’t already done so, Equifax is still offering free credit freezes until the law goes into effect. Signing up for a freeze is simple and instructions are on their website.
2. Regardless of whether you have freezes in place, monitoring your credit reports routinely is important for protecting yourself from identity theft crimes. You are entitled to one free credit report each year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. You can find out more at annualcreditreport.com.
3. Checking over account statements and using strong passwords on all of your accounts can help minimize the risk and the long-term effects of identity theft.

5 Overlooked Office Cybersecurity Risks

It’s easier than you think for companies and business leaders to overlook cybersecurity. Unfortunately, the nature of the threat means some of the biggest worries for your organization might actually be out in plain sight. Here are five kinds of cybersecurity risks that are regularly overlooked.

Inconsistent or Nonspecific Cybersecurity

An obvious weakness in the cybersecurity strategy at your place of work is the people. More specifically, it’s how well and how consistently they’re trained on security essentials.

Everybody should be on the same page about the reality of the risks and how necessary a good human element is these days, even with all the anti-virus and anti-malware software available.

The understanding of what a phishing email looks like comes in handy just as much at home as it does in the office. It comes with an added bonus: Even though nobody likes extra meetings, 77 percent of surveyed employees stated that specific and consistent cybersecurity training helped them feel a greater sense of ownership over the company and its processes and assets.

Poor Password Hygiene

When it comes to office culture and cybersecurity, poor password hygiene is especially worrying. If one employee secures all their work accounts with the same password, that’s a lot of potential information that could go missing if somebody targets them for cybercrime.

The importance of good password hygiene isn’t as overlooked as it used to be, but some of the best solutions probably are. Investing in a password manager is always a good idea — and it’s something you can apply to office culture, too. Look for a password manager with cross-platform functionality if you need it, and search for multiuser plans to give everybody in the office the means to create and store their own strong passwords for everything they do at work.

Not Taking Updates Seriously

This list entry is another one that gets talked about all the time, yet is still regularly responsible for personal embarrassment, as well as wide-scale disasters like WannaCry and Petya. These cybersecurity incidents exploited out-of-date software. More specifically, they took advantage of a window of vulnerability between a Microsoft patch going live and that patch being applied widely.

The point is not that clicking refresh on software updates all day long will prevent every possible instance a cybercriminal could exploit a vulnerability or back door. Setting everything you can to auto-update at a convenient time, daily, does stand a chance of keeping you safer.

Unsecured Personal Devices

BYOD culture — or bring your own device — is a great thing for employees and employers alike. It lets employees perform their duties in a digital workspace they already know and feel comfortable in. On the employer side, the lack of a serious learning curve and the small bump in productivity are welcome.

What’s less welcome are the cybersecurity risks that BYOD culture brings. It’s possible to permit and even encourage your teams to work on their own laptops and tablets, but this shouldn’t be done without a comprehensive and robust BYOD policy drawn up by your IT team. At a minimum, you should require that users access on-premises internet connections using VPNs and that all accounts are equipped with two-factor authentication.

Mobile Malware and Ransomware

Malware has finally gone mobile. None of the modern mobile operating systems are exempt from risk, and there are multiple ways for malware to infect a device, including fake app downloads and Wi-Fi spoofing.

Ransomware is another threat to our personal and business cybersecurity. In one of the most famous cases, the U.K.’s National Health Service’s digital properties were held for ransom. Unbreakable protection is all but impossible, but ensuring your off-site and local data backups are always encrypted can give you some breathing room by keeping usable data out of would-be thieves’ hands.

5 Easy Ways to Protect Yourself Online

Every day, it seems we hear about a new internet scam, from Nigerian princes requesting a wire transfer of $10,000 to online dating catfishing. As helpful as the internet can be, such stories are worrisome.

While the internet can sometimes seem like a jungle of a million different threats, you can take steps to protect yourself. Here are five easy, free and quick ways to safeguard yourself

Enable Two-Step Authentication

Also known as multi- or two-factor authentication or login approval – two-step verification provides an extra layer of security beyond your username and password to protect against account hijacking. When using this security mechanism, you will log in using your password and then be prompted verify your identity again. This second verification is usually done via a biometric (fingerprint or face scan), security keys or a unique one-time code through an app on your mobile device.

Many websites and companies offer two-step verification, and they make it easy to set up this second layer – usually found in the settings section of your account. Using two-step authentication can help you feel more secure, especially for sites containing your financial information.

Check a Site’s SSL Certificate

Whenever you’re shopping online and entering credit card or bank information, it’s important to make sure that website is secured to protect against hackers trying to steal your info. You can find out if a website is secure by checking its SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certification. While this process sounds complicated, it’s actually one of the simplest and quickest things to do for your online security.

When on a website, check the URL. Does it start with “http://” or “https://”? If you notice an s at the end, that means your connection is encrypted and secure, so any data you enter is safely sent to the website. Not all sites have SSL certification. While they may be fine to browse, avoid sharing any financial or personal information on websites without this added layer of security.

Don’t Save Financial Information on Shopping Sites

Even sites with SSL certification can be hacked. While there may not be a way yet to completely safeguard your data from hackers if you shop online, you can secure your financial information better by removing it altogether from shopping sites.

Many shopping sites let you save your credit card information in your online account. This setup makes it easier to make purchases in the future, as your billing and shipping addresses and credit card information are stored. However, if you can access this information, so can hackers. Rather than store your credit cards and addresses in your accounts, spend the extra minute to enter your information each time you make a purchase.

Be Careful Who You Trust

Catfishing has made headlines quite a few times in the last few years, and this online scam doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Catfishing happens when a person sets up a fake online profile ­­­­­– usually on social media or dating sites ­– and targets people with the goal of asking for money.

Catfishers are in it for the long game and may try to strike up an online relationship for months before asking for money. The losses can be extreme, averaging more than $15,000 per victim. To avoid catfishing, don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know and never send money to someone you haven’t met in person. If a situation ever feels fishy, trust your gut and cut off contact with that individual.

Create Strong, Unique Passwords

Using the same password for every account it is not a safe. Often, people don’t realize their account has been hacked.

Make your password a sentence: A strong password is a sentence that is at least 12 characters long. Focus on positive sentences or phrases that you like to think about and are easy to remember (for example, “I love country music.”). On many sites, you can even use spaces!