Facebook Hacked!

On Friday afternoon, Facebook announced that hackers had their way with some employee laptops.  It said none of its users’ data was compromised, and that the attack occurred after some employees visited a website that infected their machines with malware.

The writer said that “It was not immediately clear why Facebook waited until now to announce the incident.”  Why, oh why, would a company wait until Friday afternoon to release negative news?  You may also wonder why the government waits until Friday afternoon to release economic news.  So people can spend the weekend absorbing the information over the weekend free from the distractions of work, of course.

Facebook described these risks in its latest Form 10-K:

Computer malware, viruses, hacking and phishing attacks, and spamming could harm our business and results of operations.

Computer malware, viruses, and computer hacking and phishing attacks have become more prevalent in our industry, have occurred on our systems in the past, and may occur on our systems in the future. Because of our prominence, we believe that we are a particularly attractive target for such attacks. Though it is difficult to determine what, if any, harm may directly result from any specific interruption or attack, any failure to maintain performance, reliability, security, and availability of our products and technical infrastructure. Any such failure may harm our reputation and our ability to retain existing users and attract new users.

In addition, spammers attempt to use our products to send targeted and untargeted spam messages to users, which may embarrass or annoy users and make Facebook less user-friendly. We cannot be certain that the technologies and employees that we have to attempt to defeat spamming attacks will be able to eliminate all spam messages from being sent on our platform. As a result of spamming activities, our users may use Facebook less or stop using our products altogether.

The SEC has been focusing on disclosure of cybersecurity risks.  Here is the release, which is exactly as exciting as it sounds.

Be Your Own IT Dept. – Applying a Protective Screen Shield to Your Mobile Device

Due to very pressing professional needs that had nothing to do with Angry Birds, I bought an Asus Transformer tablet.  I wanted an Android tablet rather than an iPad since I do some Android development in my spare time.  See my apps here.  And buy them.  This blog ain’t paying for itself.

Since I intend to use it as a paper substitute with a stylus, I figured I needed a screen protector and settled on Armorsuit.  Unfortunately, the application method involves “washing hands” and “solutions” and squeegying.  The final product is streaky and bubbly, but from the comments I read this is to be expected while the solution dries.

I’m supposed to leave it off for 12 to 24 hours and the bubbles and streaks should eventually go away.  The website says it can be removed without residue, so I have that going for me.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here’s how YouTube says to do it:

Best comment:  “If I leave my phone off for 24 hours, my family and friends will most likely think I’m dead.”

The High Cost of Avoiding Higher Costs

I have a very long ‘to do’ list for setting up the new solo practice.  There is a ton of stuff that my old firm used to handle for me.  I never paid any mind to any of it.  And now I have to arrange for lots of stuff, including professional liability insurance.

Where to start?  I was going to go through the Texas bar program for insurance, but I read that they won’t write insurance if your securities practice is too large.  My may become too large, but its difficult to know since I won’t have any clients when I start.  I got a recommendation for a broker from a friend who had a solo practice a few years ago.

I await the estimates for the policy early next week, but the securities coverage is expensive.  The securities rider to the application was lengthy and was not particularly well suited to a new practice that is disconnected to the old practice.  For example, as a solo practitioner, it is unlikely that I’ll be representing underwriters in initial public offerings, but that had been a major part of my practice over the last few years.  And yet, the rider was focused on extrapolating the last year or so of my practice over the next year for coverage.  We’ll see how it turns out.