The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has announced via email that its customers have been exposed after a contractor was hit by a ransomware attack. The contractor, Automatic Funds Transfer Services (AFTS), was utilized by the DMV for verifying changes of addresses within its national database. The DMV has

During this election cycle, Californians have voted to increase their state’s privacy laws, allowing consumers to have more of a say in how their data is utilized by organizations and big tech companies. The law, proposition 24, won 56% of votes this fall as Californians flocked to the polls to

In July, the Department of Homeland Security allegedly received a report from two cybersecurity firms detailing a vulnerability in the online voter registration systems used by counties in California and Florida. The researchers warned that hackers could leverage an old flaw that allowed them to change voter registration files four

Google has announced that it will launch new features that alert California residents to wildfires burning throughout the state. The feature will provide residents with information about the fires, including maps of their boundaries, within the company’s Maps offering, and in the Google search engine. Google plans to use data

The American Civil Liberties Union has reportedly filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles on Monday, demanding that the city stops supplying companies operating electric scooter rental services with real-time data that may be a privacy concern. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation uses a tool called the

The DoppelPaymer Ransomware has reportedly attacked the City of Torrance in the LA metropolitan area of California. The attackers unencrypted data stolen and encrypted devices, demanding 100 bitcoin in ransom for a decryptor. The threat actors also published sensitive files, threatening to leak more if the ransom request is not

The number of COVID-19 cases has reached 245,000, while the number of deaths due to infection doubled ina week to more than 10,000 as of today. Italy, Iran, and Spain have all experienced large increases in virus deaths, causing governments all over the world to take preemptive measures to contain

Waymo, Google’s self-driving car initiative, boasts the best annual statistics for how infrequently humans need to interact with self-driving vehicles throughout tests but is competing with Cruise, General Motor’s equivalent program. Cruise reported numbers just behind Waymo in 2019 and seemed to have increased its capabilities greatly throughout the second

On Wednesday, California’s 2018 privacy law went into effect, making California the US state with the strictest privacy law. The law, The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) includes implications like strict requirements for companies to notify users about data usage and monetization and requiring companies to offer tools for opting

A recent report by California’s state auditor uncovered “high risk deficiencies” at 21 of 33 government entities that are not forced to follow security standards developed by the California Department of Technology. Certain entities had not implemented basic security measures including changing default passwords and patching vulnerable systems. The report