American Banker (August 9)
“Bad actors, unconfined by ethical boundaries, recently released two large language models designed to help fraudsters write phishing prompts and hackers write malware.” In the future, “banks and other companies may need to contend” with novel threats “as fraudsters master the use of large language models.” Companies will also need to consider many risks “when building and deploying their own large language models: theft of models; leaks of information (such as investing advice or personal transaction histories) by model outputs: and manipulation of models by poisoned data (such as open-source data that a malicious actor has intentionally manipulated to be inaccurate).”
Tags: Bad actors, Banks, Ethical boundaries, Fraudsters, Hackers, Investing, Large language models, Malware, Manipulation, Phishing, Risks, Theft, Threats, Transaction
Reuters (July 8)
“Europe’s data police have new fangs that are turning out to be pretty sharp. British Airways was told on Monday it faced a 183 million pound penalty for the theft of customer information from its website last year.” The record hacking fine did reward BA for coming forward and owning up to the breech. Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) the penalty could have been up to “4% of global revenue. Yet the fine announced by the ICO amounts to 1.5% of British Airways’ 2017 sales.”
Tags: BA, Customer information, Data, EU, GDPR, Hacking fine, Penalty, Record, Revenue, Theft, Website
Wall Street Journal (December 18)
“China is testing U.S. resolve to maintain freedom of navigation in international waters that Beijing illegally claims as its own” with its recent theft of a U.S. underwater drone. “Whether China today is responding to Mr. Trump or offering a final insult to President Obama is beside the point because the drone theft is part of a larger Chinese pattern. China’s behavior shows its intention to intimidate its neighbors and establish hegemony in East Asia.”
Tags: China, Drone, East Asia, Freedom of navigation, Hegemony, Intimidate, Obama, Theft, Trump, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (February 27)
“Tens of billions of dollars in U.S. market value have disappeared in recent years as more than 170 U.S.-listed Chinese companies have faced scrutiny for embezzlement, theft, misrepresentation and other alleged abuses.” Regrettably, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has caved-in on tighter inspections, deciding “not to suspend the Chinese audit firms or penalize them beyond token fines of $500,000.” As a result, U.S. investors “still lack basic protections against Chinese fraudsters” while Chinese authorities “remain as free as ever to stymie future investigations.” Furthermore, the SEC’s lack of spine increases “China’s rising confidence that it can play by its own rules.”
Tags: Abuses, Audit firms, Embezzlement, Inspections, Investors, Market value, Misrepresentation, Rules, SEC, Theft, U.S.-listed Chinese companies
Bloomberg (June 1)
India loses more power than any other nation to electricity theft, almost a third of its annual 174GW supply. “The pilfering of almost enough power to charge California for a year lowers the annual income of Indian distribution companies by $16 billion and cuts output by 1.2 percent in the $1.3 trillion economy.” India hopes to reduce electricity theft with competition and privatization. Compared to state-owned firms, private companies are less tolerant of electricity theft. Their inspectors are less susceptible to bribes to look the other way.
India loses more power than any other nation to electricity theft, almost a third of its annual 174GW supply. “The pilfering of almost enough power to charge California for a year lowers the annual income of Indian distribution companies by $16 billion and cuts output by 1.2 percent in the $1.3 trillion economy.” India hopes to reduce electricity theft with competition and privatization. Compared to state-owned firms, private companies are less tolerant of electricity theft. Their inspectors are less susceptible to bribes to look the other way.
Tags: Competition, Electricity, India, Privatization, Theft
