Tag Archives: Judith Bitterli

AVG

Trust remains a key obstacle for mobile

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2014 was the biggest year to date for security and privacy online. With high profile companies announcing security breaches and data hacks throughout the year, 2014 became a year of lost innocence for the web.

People around the globe have begun to realize that their data, once shared with the World Wide Web, takes on a life of its own.

Because of this, trust and privacy have become more important than ever to our digital lives. Trusting people with our data and keeping hold of our privacy have become real every day concerns.

Nowhere is this more relevant than in mobile. And mobile devices are increasingly the gateway for most of us in the connected world.

The importance of trust and the relevance of mobile are why this year; we have once again collaborated with MEF to create the Global Consumer Trust Report 2015.

Here are two key points that I’d like you to take away from the report:

 

Trust is a growing concern

Last year, the report highlighted the growing issue of trust as a barrier to purchase on mobile devices and this year is no different.

  • A lack of trust is again the single most influential factor preventing more downloads and purchases via mobile. 34% named it as such as compared to 30% the previous year.

It won’t come as any surprise after the multitude of hacks we saw in 2014, that awareness and concern around data privacy and trust is up around the globe.

  • China reported the highest trust concerns at 41% and the US saw the largest increase in a lack of trust, up nine points year-on-year to 35%

 

Trust really does affect people’s behavior

Trust is such a difficult concept to understand, especially when it is concerning something as abstract as the Internet. How do you know if you trust an app? Moreover, how does that trust actually influence your behavior?

This year’s report shows that trust, or lack thereof, really does have an impact (and a growing one at that) on how we engage with apps and services on our devices.

  • 49% of consumers surveyed say a lack of trust limits the amount of apps they download or use compared to 37% in the previous year
  • 72% of mobile media users are uncomfortable sharing personal data such as location or contact details with apps.

 

It’s also great to see that, in the report, 64% of those studied use software or apps to guard passwords and protect against malware.  Only one in ten (11%) take no steps to protect their device.

MEF Global Consumer Trust Report

 

We still have a long way to go to ensure that the web is a safe and trustworthy place for everyone, including the next wave of digital citizens coming on line, but we are making progress.

The issues of trust and privacy are starting to come to the fore and with them, they will bring change.

We’ll see changes in the way that users behave online, changes in the way that businesses explain how they use our data and changes in the way that governments form new modern data laws.

Nevertheless, with change comes responsibility. We must all play our own role in forging a brighter, safer and more trustworthy Internet. We must all become responsible digital citizens.

 

 

AVG

Newsweek’s Cover Art Controversy

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It’s interesting to parse the controversy stirred up by the cover of Newsweek magazine’s February 6, 2015 issue.  But it’s the art illustrating the story “What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women,” not the article itself that is causing all the stir.

The cover is a drawing of a faceless woman in a mini-skirt and heels, with her hemline being lifted up – and, some would say poked –with a cursor.

Reaction to the illustration was immediate (at least in Silicon Valley) and has been on-going. Divided opinions have been aired on blogs, social media and the Today show.

The article itself illustrates some well-documented facts about how working women fare in the tech world in Silicon Valley. Chief among them: the enormous gender gap in tech jobs and how difficult it is for women-led businesses to find funding from VCs, underscored by a dearth of women VC partners.  This thesis is supported by the recent findings of research by Babson College, among others, that I’ve also written about previously.

In a very informal polling of some of my Silicon Valley women friends, four out of five thought the cover accurately characterized the article.

For some, the woman without facial features – besides red lipstick – proved a compelling example of misogyny. For another camp, the cover illustration perpetuated a stereotype and the gender problem in tech.

The cover’s designer, Edel Rodriguez, defended himself and talked about what he was trying to achieve in an interview on the industry website, GigaOM.

“The subject of the article is how women are treated in Silicon Valley. It details the sexual harassment, jokes and treatment that women put up with in the industry. The image represents this harassment. A woman should have the right to dress however she pleases without this happening to them. These men have grown up around technology and video games their entire lives. They see women as objects that they can mistreat. The image conveys the exact moment when the harassment is symbolically taking place.” The full article/interview with Rodriguez can be found here.

Many agree on one thing: the cover art has fulfilled its mission of drawing attention and getting people to read the piece on an important topic!

My thoughts: First, I was happy that Newsweek focused on this important topic and ran a cover story on the challenges of women in tech.  Second: Art is always a matter of personal preference. But in this case, I’m in the camp of don’t blame the art. It’s art imitating real life.

But I do want to say that from my experience there are many companies in Silicon Valley who don’t participate in the harassment depicted in the article and there are many people who advocate for women. As proven with this article, there’s growing momentum in the tech world to address the gender gap. And that’s very good news.

As anyone who has followed my blog posts knows, I am a strong advocate of advancing this discussion.  It’s the basis for a conversation I look forward to leading during my session “Boardroom or Baby” at SXSW 2015.
Speak_IA

AVG

Toy drones continue to cause problems

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The latest incident involving a drone has more serious implications than buzzing a neighbor’s yard. In January, a drone crashed into a tree on the South Lawn of the White House.  Apparently, the drone was small enough to avoid detection by the White House security radar.

The man who was operating the drone is an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. After seeing the story on the news the following day, he contacted officials to confess. He later admitted that he had been drinking.

The point is that drone adventures are getting increasingly (and literally) out of control.

The White House incident comes just days after the Department of Homeland Security held a conference in Arlington, Va., on the dangers that such drones pose to the nation’s critical infrastructure and government facilities.

The New York Times reported that the conference exhibited a DJI Phantom drone — the same type of drone that reportedly crashed at the White House.

Image courtesy of gizmag

 

However, the drone on display at Homeland Security’s conference had three pounds of fake explosives attached to demonstrate how easy it would be to weaponize. Frightening.

The President said in an interview with CNN that he has instructed federal agencies to examine and address the broader problem and the need for regulations on drone technology.

As the President wisely noted, regarding drones, “We don’t yet have the legal structures and the architecture both globally and within individual countries to manage them the way that we need to.”

Part of the idea for legislation or enforcement, the President said, “is seeing if we can start providing some sort of framework that ensures that we get the good and minimize the bad.”

Legislation and regulation needs to happen soon. Even though it is illegal to fly drones in Washington DC, that appears to be a small deterrent.

Let’s see how this unfolds. There are privacy and security hazards with drones that everyone needs to be aware of, and this incident might spur some real action.

 

AVG

25 Passwords You Should Avoid

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As we approach February, and look forward to a year of stronger cybersecurity, there is still time to give your passwords a refresh and resolve to do so regularly.

Password protection is more important than ever, especially with so many devices, which provide ready access to so much of our personal information.

AVG’s own Tony Anscombe noted in his Safer Internet Day 2015 post recently, “Protecting your online world starts with devices and setting a passcode…”

It was interesting to find that in the annual list of Top 25 most common passwords on the Internet, as researched by the password management provider SplashData, the easy targets like “123456″ and “password” continue to hold the top two spots!

 

Other favorites in the research conducted by analyzing passwords that had been leaked in 2014: QWERTY and football.  Their popularity makes them notoriously some of the “worst” passwords to use and the “easiest” for hackers to figure out.

 

Creating a strong password

Picking a strong password doesn’t need to be difficult. We recently published an infographic on how to create a strong password that is also easy to remember.

 

AVG

SXSW 2015: The Challenges Facing Women in Tech

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Recent events have shown that the technology industry is starting to address the gender gap, but what can women do to get ahead in one of the most competitive business environments?

This year at SXSW 2015, Judith Bitterli will be giving expert advice to women looking to forge a career in technology.

Whether a building career roadmap, mentoring advice or hard lessons learned, Judith will share her experiences and answer questions.

Video

The Challenges Facing Women in Tech?

 

If you are planning to attend SXSW this year, we’d love for you to come by and share your views.

See Judith Bitterli at SXSW 2015

AVG

Will 2015 be the biggest yet for Cybersecurity?

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President Obama’s recently announced comprehensive new cybersecurity proposal for the U.S., highlighted in his State of the Union address (you can see a full transcript of this address here), puts the issue of cybersecurity where it should be: front and center.

The high-profile cyber-attacks and hacks of the past year have drawn a mainstream spotlight to cybersecurity. As the President emphasized in his address: “No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids.”

What are my thoughts? I think this is a real, actionable step in the right direction to increase the war on cyber-attacks and protect consumers and businesses.

The new Presidential cybersecurity proposal, officially announced  on December 19 at  the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, aims to move to quicker and more active security breach and threat reporting.

Image courtesy of The Guardian

According to the White House announcement, the proposal would create a more proactive environment for companies and organizations in the private sector to share security breaches with the government. The proposal, for example, would criminalize the sale of stolen financial data, and mandate that companies notify consumers about data breaches, as well as protect companies from liability.

As stated by the White House, “Specifically, the proposal encourages the private sector to share appropriate cyber threat information with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which will then share it in as close to real-time as practicable with relevant federal agencies and with private sector-developed and operated Information.”

Information sharing provides a way to get a real-time response to these breaches. But it’s the old left-hand, right-hand problem.  Information sharing would speed up an organized response to a data breach or cyber-threat and allow a concerted response. But there remain legitimate concerns in many camps about the information shared.

This proposal seems to be well crafted in that it recognizes a general apprehension of handing over information to the government, a genuine concern (even an obsession) for many. The plan seeks to mollify privacy concerns by requiring participating companies to comply with a set of restrictions, such as removing “unnecessary personal information” and to protect personal information that has been shared.

A national standard in the United States for reporting breaches has been a long time coming. If you’re a company that has been hacked, your obligations are different in different states. If your information has been hacked, a company’s obligation to report it to you currently depends on the regulations of the state you reside in, which simply doesn’t make sense. If you’ve been hacked by someone from Russia, for example, does it matter whether you live in Connecticut or Texas? The problem is a global one, but a national plan is a great move.

The new cybersecurity proposal has critics and supporters lining up in debate.  And the prospect is real that this cybersecurity plan like previous proposals could become stalled in Congress.

“cybersecurity needs to be proactive in preventing and detecting cyber crime”.

We all need to focus on the idea that cybersecurity is not just reactive, but needs to be proactive – in preventing and detecting cyber crime. The President’s proposal is a step along that path.

I’m looking forward to a next step and results of the newly announced Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford on February 13, 2015 which will convene a wide variety of groups for industry, private and public – to help shape public and private sector efforts to protect consumers and companies from growing network threats.

The good news is that momentum for cybersecurity is building. If we can get business, government, and the security industry in this country working from the same digital page, the benefits could be tremendous.

It’s a critical and very exciting time to be in digital security.

AVG

The future of smart glasses still looks bright

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At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show earlier in January, wearable digital technology was the darling of the show.

While most of the buzz was around smart watches, Google Glass remained a status symbol worn by some geeks attending the show.  The yet-young “smart glasses” scene even boasted new entrants by major players like Sony and Epson.

So, it was surprising to some, when Google announced last week that as of Monday January 19th 2015, it was halting sales of its glasses and going back to the drawing board. Perhaps not so surprising to anyone outside the bubble of CES.

The consumer product media had ridiculed the glasses and its adopters for everything from how the device looks, to potential privacy infringements.

Google announced that Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod while at Apple and the CEO of smart-home device maker Nest Labs, which Google acquired last year, would undertake the Glass re-boot.

Tony Faddell

Image courtesy of mojandroid

 

Under Fadell’s expert hand, the product’s redesign should help Google Glass, though concerns about the smart glasses concept remain. I recently wrote about wearable devices and adoption, and privacy issues, particularly in the workplace. The focus of that piece was a potential ban on smart glasses and what companies need to do to prepare for the Wear Your Own Device (WYOD) trend. For now, it looks like the negatives outweighed the benefits, on the consumer side at least.

However, I believe that the smart glasses concept has great potential in other areas – one of which, is healthcare.  Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a prime example of how smart glasses can assist medical staff. It has developed a system that allows an ER doctor to look up information on patients by using Google Glass to scan a Quick response (QR) code on the wall of each room. It’s a great project and you can read a doctor’s blog about it here.

More recently, smart glasses for healthcare applications got another boost in the form of Augmedix, a startup with the aim of providing medical professionals with a Glass-powered records management solution.

Augmedix

Image courtesy of Augmedix

 

Enabled by Google Glass, Augmedix expedites the time physicians spend daily entering or retrieving data from electronic health records, allowing them to focus on patient care. According to the company, first launched in 2012, the service has a nationwide patient acceptance rating of more than 99 percent. The company’s CEO reports to Forbes that the Glass reboot is not cause for concern, as Google will continue to supply Glass to enterprise customers.

According to Forbes, Augmedix was one of ten companies Google lists as certified Glass at Work partners, focused on Glass-based enterprise services. More than half of them list healthcare as a major focus.

Of course, privacy issues will be consummately important for smart glasses in healthcare scenarios – as patient privacy is rigorously protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and vigilance is of critical importance to all of us.

It’s not just about healthcare though, I think the smart glasses category has a lot to offer many fields that need quick and hands-free information, including things like rescue operations and engineering on a drilling platform.

So, where are digital glasses going? Suffice it to say, for now, it looks like away from the consumer market and into business ones.

Image courtesy of knowyourmobile

AVG

A Time to Celebrate Diversity  

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Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day in the U.S., a day to remember the great Civil Rights champion. I think it’s also a day for us in the tech industry to celebrate diversity and reflect on it.

There was a significant development in tech diversity earlier this month.  Intel CEO Brian Krzanich pledged in his CES keynote address to invest $300 million over the next five years to improve the diversity of the company’s workforce. The investment will be used to attract more women and minorities for engineering and computer science positions, actively support and retain those new employees, and fund programs to support more positive diversity within the larger technology and gaming industries.

And, at least in my mind, equally importantly, as part of its effort, Intel is attempting to achieve “full representation” of women and under-represented minorities within the company by 2020, including in senior leadership positions.

“It’s not good enough to say we value diversity and then under-represent women and minorities,” Krzanich stated in his address. “Intel wants to lead by example.”

This was really refreshing and good news to hear from one of technology’s leading companies, and I applaud it.

The move follows a breakthrough last year when top tech companies released their workforce make-ups for the first time.  Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, Instagram were among the companies to report.

The numbers show that women represent no more than 30 percent of the workforce in many of the top companies. (Full disclosure: This is true for AVG as well.) Another snapshot provided in the latest (ISC)2 workforce study, published in spring 2013, shows that as a whole, the information security sector trails significantly with only 10% of its professionals female.

That is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the overall representation of minorities. This chart from the Guardian newspaper created by Information is Beautiful provides a view of gender and racial diversity make-up of the tech and social media industry.

Guardian Technology Diversity

 

Since last year’s report, a number of companies have begun to step up and invest in diversity, as we’ve previously written. In June, Google announced a program to get more women into tech with a $50 million fund to encourage girls to take up computer science in college and other grants and programs.  Its “Made with Code” campaign is in partnership with Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization that runs summer coding schools for girls, and The Clinton Foundation, whose No Ceilings project aims to promote full participation by girls and women in all aspects of society.  You can read about it here.

More recently, the Hour of Code, while not aimed specifically at women and minorities, was another excellent step in promoting overall interest in computer science during Computer Science Education Week. They reported more than 10 million girls tried computer since in that one week – more than the total of the last 70 years! You can learn more at code.org.

While there is more work to be done to move diversity forward, these are good starts for our industry.

I am looking forward to contributing to the effort to help close the diversity gap in the tech industry and encourage women in technology careers as a speaker at the 2015 SXSW Interactive program with a Core Conversation on “Boardroom or Baby? The Choices Women have in Tech” on March 14th.  If you’re planning to attend the conference in Austin, Texas, please put 3:30-4:30 p.m. on your calendar to join the conversation. I’m sure it will be lively!

See Judith Bitterli at SXSW 2015

 

Title image courtesy of the bbc

AVG

The arrival of toy drones

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Drones have landed – as one of the hottest gifts over this past holiday season and one of the biggest hits at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show this past week.

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), as they are also known, are like model airplanes on steroids. They can hover, fly and often come equipped with cameras. They can belong to you or anyone else for under $100 dollars.

The cheap availability and growing capabilities of drones means that there are privacy and safety issues at stake.

We’ve already seen drones experience near misses with aircraft at major airports while unmanned flying cameras are an obvious threat to privacy.

It’s clear that drones are going to be around for a while and that legislation is needed to set reasonable and responsible limitations for recreational drone use.

However, regulation is still very much up in the air, if you’ll pardon the pun.

 

Who is taking action on drones?

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has issued a list of do’s and don’ts for flying safety regarding model aircraft for recreational use. These mostly focus on keeping them away from flying aircraft, airports and within sight line of the user. (See guidelines here.)

National Parks Service has banned drones from all National Parks, worried that the noise and proximity to wildlife would disturb nesting, migratory, and reproductive habits. The NPS also noted visitor safety was an issue.

Drone industry officials announced that they are teaming up with the government and model aircraft hobbyists to launch a safety campaign, which includes a website (www.knowbeforeyoufly.com) that includes safety tips and FAA regulations.

In the U.K, the Civilian Air Authority has already set protocols, mostly involving flying over congested areas and airspace, and the European Aviation Safety Agency is developing EU-wide safety standards which reportedly will be as high as those for manned aircraft.

Commercial use of drones has become a thorny subject and there is pending legislation in U.S. Congress that might even require commercial drone operators to have pilot licenses.

With all this legislation in the works, it’s clear there’s a lot more to this year’s hot toy story than first meets the eye. And you can bet there’s going to be a lot more to come…

Title image courtesy of firstsing

AVG

Thoughts from CES: The physical world is becoming digital

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As a long-time attendee of CES, I tend to look forward to it with both excitement and trepidation. As it gets bigger each year, it steadily becomes busier and more difficult to physically get around and take it all in.

This year, I walked away from the show thinking we finally have reached a point where smart digital tech doesn’t just sit within a specific market or category any more. Instead, it’s finally become ubiquitous and is now being embedded throughout our everyday lives.  It was evident at the show that we are truly in the “smart” and “Internet of Things” era.

IoT

Image courtesy of GigaOm

 

Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), identified this phenomenon as the ‘digitization of physical space”, “permeation of logic” and the “Internet of Me”.

Regardless of what you call it, CES 2015 showed me that innovation in connected technology is now everywhere – from baby pacifiers to dog bowls, home appliances to, of course, the self-driving car.

As always, we must remember that  as fascinating as they are, many of the products at CES are in the prototype phase –and many will never reach the wider market. But nonetheless, it’s always interesting to observe and try to gauge what we may have in store a few years down the line.

This year I was fortunate enough to also be exhibiting at CES as part of the Lifelong Tech and Family Tech Summits. AVG exhibited many of our family-focused products (including our Location Labs, Privacy Fix, and Zen products) in the Sands Expo Hall.

We were surrounded by all things smart and wearable for health, fitness, education and families. It was a fascinating and highly trafficked place to be where the digitization of everything and the Internet of Things was on display in full force.

Where it will all go from here in the year ahead, will be, not doubt, rooted in practicality. For example, let’s take that baby pacifier I mentioned.

The Pacif-i, a “smart” baby pacifier designed by U.K.-based Blue Maestro was a big hit. This product connects to parents’ smartphones via Bluetooth, and alters them to situations such as as when their baby is running a fever. In this instance, smart devices are creating very useful and valuable information to help parents.

Then at the other end of the spectrum were many fun, novelty and me-too items (names I’ll withhold) whose value will need to be proven…

It’s an exciting new world that we’re embarking upon. But it also reminds us that our privacy and security is increasingly paramount. That’s why we at AVG are continually looking at the trends and what we can do to help you guard and defend your data, devices and “digital” selves.

 

Title image courtesy of gospelherald