Posted inBusiness, Economy, Education, News, Technology

Colorado has had a shortage of cybersecurity professionals for years. Here’s how that’s going. 

The pressure was on. Someone, somewhere, was attacking computer systems so customers couldn’t reach certain websites. In a windowless room in Denver, Zack Privette had worked all morning with his security team to figure out what the cyber strangers were up to.  “What’s happened is that we have an attacker who has been going through […]

Posted inBusiness, Climate, Energy, Environment, News

Xcel Energy needs a smarter, greener electric grid. But should Colorado customers foot the $344 million bill for it?

Xcel Energy is pushing for a record $344 million rate increase it says it needs to build a smarter, greener electric grid. But consumer advocates and state regulators are pushing back over the price tag. A major concern is that along with an earlier rate increase and other pending requests since the start of 2020, […]

Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government, Technology

Colorado is the third state to pass a consumer-data privacy bill. Now what?

That creepy feeling that someone is tracking your every move online was acknowledged this legislative session by lawmakers who overwhelmingly passed the Colorado Privacy Act. It gives residents the right to tell companies to stop collecting their data — and delete any personal data collected.  As more states consider similar privacy measures and companies like […]

Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns

Opinion: While we’re debating how to improve infrastructure, let’s pay more attention to countering cyber-threats

With the recent cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline leaving much of the East Coast without gasoline during the six-day outage, it’s long past due to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the country’s critical infrastructures. Significant cyberattacks in the past decade include the Equifax breach of 147 million records (almost 42% of the U.S. population) in […]

Posted inBusiness, News

World’s largest meat producer JBS getting back online after cyberattack that stalled production lines in Greeley

By Dee-Ann Durbin and Frank Bajak, The Associated Press The world’s largest meat processing company has resumed most production after a weekend cyberattack, but experts say the vulnerabilities exposed by this attack and others are far from resolved. In a statement late Wednesday, the FBI attributed the attack on Brazil-based meat processor JBS SA to […]

Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government, Technology

Nearly 200 companies with Colorado customers reported data breaches in the past 16 months

As two consumer data privacy bills wind their way through the statehouse, a law passed three years ago is giving Colorado a sense of what happens when private companies, government entities or nonprofit organizations get hacked and consumer data is exposed. Nearly 200 companies or organizations have reported data breaches and notified 1.6 million Colorado […]

Posted inBusiness, Economy, News, Technology

What’s Working: How ID.me navigates face masks and social engineering to battle Colorado unemployment fraud

The staggering five-plus-hours wait to complete the last step for receiving unemployment benefits has been whittled down by 60% after the company tasked with verifying user identities ramped up staffing. Two hours, though, is still a long time to wait on the phone or on a computer for your turn to talk to a human.  […]

Posted inBusiness, Economy, News

How scammers targeted Colorado’s unemployment system — and what the state is doing about it

Like many victims of unemployment fraud, Duane Thomas only learned that someone had used his identity to file for jobless benefits when a strange 1099-G tax document arrived in his mailbox last month. He reported the mistake in an online form provided by the state Department of Labor and Employment. Within about three weeks, the […]