However, providers with less than 100,000 subscribers have until June 30, 2023 to implement STIR/SHAKEN. This is important because the FCC found that most illegal robocalls come from a subset of these small providers, which has prompted the agency to propose shortening the adoption period by one year.

We all hate Robocalls and scammers persistently calling our phones and you may have sensed an increase in the frequency of this common nuisance. You are correct.

So far in 2021, Americans have received a monthly average of 30.7 spam calls, compared to 28.0 in 2020, according to a June 2021 report from Truecaller. Robocalls represented 21.5 of the average monthly spam calls, or 70%.

Hacking a computer is not hard, especially when security is not a priority for so many businesses out there. Look at any computer/network security focused website and pretty much every day you come across evidence of some hack being reported, most of the time well after the attackers have either stolen gigabytes of data, or in a lot of cases, encrypted it all and asked for a ransom. How does all of this happen with seemingly nothing done to deter criminals from continuing this lucrative business? Well, by being countries that have weak cybersecurity laws, for one. Another, criminals don’t have to be smart, they just have to be opportunistic… enter: Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS).

On April 20th, it was announced that the U.S. Government was directing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Department of Energy, and the electricity industry to conduct a 100-day sprint in which they will address critical risks to the U.S. power grid. It, “represents swift, aggressive actions to confront cyber threats from adversaries who seek to compromise critical systems that are essential to U.S. national and economic security,” according to the announcement.

For the record, Macs are not immune from infections of malicious software. This is proof that, “ain’t nobody safe!”

Researchers at Red Canary have discovered that nearly 30,000 Macs in 153 countries have been infected with a new malware strain called Silver Sparrow. Although the delivery of additional payloads has not been observed yet, its forward-looking M1 chip compatibility, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggests Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat that is uniquely positioned to deliver a potentially impactful payload at a moment’s notice.