It’s the start of a brand new calendar year! And therefore it’s time to engage in that annual ritual of planning to do better this year by making our list of New Year’s Resolutions. To help you with the cybersecurity and privacy items on your list (an area where we all need major improvement), I will share with you my personal list of cyber goals for 2022. Yes, even security advocates can suffer from the “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. We’re all human, and there are plenty of things that I still need to get done – things that you probably need to do, too. I’ll also catch you up on the latest security and privacy news: several articles popped up about a supposed data breach at LastPass that turned out to be incorrect; the US Federal Trade Commission is getting very serious about fining companies with lax cybersecurity practices in light of the Log4J/Log4Shell nightmare; clever scammers in Texas are tricking motorists into paying the wrong people for parking; Norton 360 and other antivirus software packages have started pre-installing cryptocurrency mining software on their customers’ computers; TurboTax is the second major tax-filing software service to drop out of the federal Free File program; Google’s adoption of the Manifest V3 specification gives users yet another reason not to use their Chrome browser; and a lawsuit in California alleges that Google’s exclusive search engine deal with Apple is stifling competition and harming consumers. Article Links - LastPass says there’s no data breach, so your passwords were not hacked https://bgr.com/tech/lastpass-says-theres-no-data-breach-so-your-passwords-were-not-hacked/?bgr-partner=flipboard - FTC to Go After Companies that Ignore Log4j https://threatpost.com/ftc-pursue-companies-log4j/177368/ - QR code scammers hitting on-street parking in Texas cities https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/01/05/qr-code-scammers-hitting-on-street-parking-in-texas-cities-this-is-what-houston-officials-want-you-to-know/ - Norton 360 Now Comes With a Cryptominer https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/norton-360-now-comes-with-a-cryptominer/ - 500M Avira Antivirus Users Introduced to Cryptomining https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/500m-avira-antivirus-users-introduced-to-cryptomining/ - Want to file your tax return for free? TurboTax opts out of major program https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2022/01/05/how-file-your-tax-return-free-turbotax/9077019002/ - Podcast on Free File report from Pro Publica: https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2020/01/13/why-free-file-isnt-free/ - Google makes the perfect case for why you shouldn’t use Chrome https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-makes-the-perfect-case-for-why-you-shouldnt-use-chrome/ - Google Basically Pays Apple to Stay Out of the Search Engine Business, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/05/google-pays-apple-stay-out-of-search/ - Betty White on MFA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmIDtDAYTPA Further Info - Annual listener survey: https://bit.ly/Firewalls-survey-2022 - Subscribe to the newsletter: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/newsletter/new-newsletter/ - Become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/FirewallsDontStopDragons - Would you like me to speak to your group about security and/or privacy? http://bit.ly/Firewalls-Speaker - Generate secure passphrases! https://d20key.com/#/