Google fined $170 million for violating children’s privacy on YouTube

Officials said YouTube violated the law that requires child-directed websites and online services to obtain parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13

Google agreed Wednesday to pay $ 170 million to settle charges that it illegally collected and shared data from children on its YouTube video service, a deal critics said was too soft on the internet giant. The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the New York state Attorney General is the largest amount in a case involving the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 federal law, officials said.

Officials said YouTube violated the law that requires child-directed websites and online services to obtain parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13 which may be used for advertising.

The company marketed itself as a destination for children and benefitted by selling advertising to toymakers and others seeking to connect with young audiences, according to the FTC. FTC chairman Joe Simons said the settlement “prevents YouTube and Google from turning a blind eye to the existence of kids-directed content” on its platform.

Simons said the settlement makes Google liable for violations by third-party content creators, going beyond federal law that requires the platform to have knowledge that videos are directed at children…

Cyber attack alert! Malware 'Wannacry' is spreading: Know all about it

Nearly hundred countries, including India, have been hit by a massive cyber-attack

 

Nearly 100 countries, including India, have been hit by a massive cyber-attack, which, according to experts, was carried out with the help of "cyber weapons" stolen from the US' National Security Agency. The cyber attack was first reported from Sweden, Britain and France, US media outlets reported. Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.

It has been reported that a new ransomware, "Wannacry", is spreading widely. Wannacry encrypts the files on infected Windows systems. This ransomware spreads by using a vulnerability in implementations of Server Message Block (SMB) in Windows systems. This exploit is named

According to cyberswachhtakendra, the file extensions that malware 'Wannacry' is targeting contain certain clusters of formats like:

Commonly used office file extensions (.ppt, .doc, .docx, .xlsx, .sxi).

Less common and nation-specific office formats (.sxw, .odt, .hwp).

Archives, media files (.zip, .rar, .tar, .bz2, .mp4, .mkv)

Emails and email databases (.eml, .msg, .ost, .pst, .edb).

Database files (.sql, .accdb, .mdb, .dbf, .odb, .myd).

Developers' sourcecode and project files (.php, .java, .cpp, .pas, .asm).

Graphic designers, artists and photographers files (.vsd, .odg, .raw, .nef, .svg, .psd).

Encryption keys and certificates (.key, .pfx, .pem, .p12, .csr, .gpg, .aes).

Virtual machine files (.vmx, .vmdk, .vdi).

After infecting, this Wannacry ransomware displays following screen on infected system:

Ransomware is writing itself into a random character folder in the 'ProgramData' folder with the file name of "tasksche.exe" or in 'C:\Windows\' folder with the file-name "mssecsvc.exe" and "tasksche.exe".

Ransomware is granting full access to all files by using the command:
Icacls . /grant Everyone:F /T /C /Q

Using a batch script for operations:
176641494574290.bat

It also drops a file named !Please Read Me!.txt which contains the text explaining what has happened and how to pay the ransom.(READ MORE)