Guide to Cybersecurity - Op-Ed

(Bloomberg) -- The top executives of Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Facebook Inc. won't attend President Barack Obama's cybersecurity summit on Friday, at a time when relations between the White House and Silicon Valley have frayed over privacy issues.

Security reporter Byron Acohido and I asked ten cyber-experts to offer up their best ideas for stemming the threats we face when it comes to digital security. Note: Almost every one of them muttered something about there being no silver bullets.

The Sony hack infamously leaked catty emails between movie executives dissing Hollywood stars and temporarily halted the release of "The Interview," which is now screening online and in theaters.When hackers attacked Sony, they also leaked mountains of employee data, including medical records, Social Security numbers and bank account information.That, workplace experts say, could be an even bigger problem than who said what nasty things about Angelina Jolie.

Cyber security is geek speak no more. Secrets stolen from government spy agencies. Personal information siphoned from major retailers and financial institutions. Intimate photos of entertainers stripped out of their cell phones. And nothing details the state of cyber crime better than Googling "Sony and "hack"!

Credit: Reuters/Staff A computer screenshot shows the U.S. Central Command Twitter feed after it was apparently hacked by people claiming to be Islamic State sympathizers January 12, 2015. In the wake of Monday's breach of U.S. Central Command's Twitter and YouTube feeds by apparent sympathizers of the Islamic State militant group, U.S.

You're filling out a pile of forms at the local hospital or when seeing a physician. You jot down your name, address, and insurance information. Then you come to a space for your Social Security number. Should you fill in those precious nine digits? If it's your doctor or hospital asking, the answer is "No!"

Let us know if we missed any big data breaches. " Safely check if your details have been compromised in any recent data breaches: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ " See the data:bit.ly/bigdatabreaches This interactive 'Balloon Race' code is powered by our forthcoming VizSweet software - a set of high-end dataviz tools for generating interactive visualisations.

Visa's Kimberly Lawrence contends that U.S. migration to EMV is progressing more rapidly than in other markets that have made the transition, requiring outside-the-box rules for debit transactions and cardholder verification. By the end of 2015, Visa estimates that some 70 percent of credit cards and 40 percent of debit cards will be EMV-compliant, Lawrence notes in an interview with Information Security Media Group.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - Cyberspace is the new "Wild West," President Barack Obama said Friday, with everyone looking to the government to be the sheriff. But he told the private sector it must do more to stop cyber attacks aimed at the U.S. every day.

BEIJING ( Caixin Online) - This may be a quantum-leap year for an initiative that accelerates data transfers close to the speed of light with no hacking threats through so-called "quantum communications" technology. Within months, China plans to open the world's longest quantum-communications network, a 2,000-kilometer (1,240-mile) electronic highway linking government offices in the cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

Anthem health insurance has begun offering free identity repair and identity monitoring for the as many as 80 million current and former customers whose personal information might have been accessed in a massive breach disclosed earlier this month The services became available on Friday, 11 days after the company made the breach public.

President Barack Obama asked for more collaboration and the open sharing of information between private-sector companies and the U.S. government at the White House Cybersecurity Summit at Stanford today. While pushing for that collaboration, he admitted it would be a challenge to both keep up with cyber threats and protect American's right to privacy at the same time.

This has been an extremely difficult week for consumers everywhere. Anthem, the second largest health insurer in the US, announced that sophisticated criminals perpetrated a daring cyber theft of at least 80 million consumer records from their databases. Anthem is warning consumers that phishing scams related to this data breach are targeting current and past covered members.

From AMBER alerts to disaster response, Facebook has fashioned itself as a go-to for all manner of public safety information. Now, amid heightened concerns over cybersecurity, the social giant is rolling out ThreatExchange -- an API-based platform for sharing security threat information.

The federal government can't protect your cyber data by itself. That's why President Obama is expected to unveil executive actions Friday designed to increase information sharing among private sector companies and federal law enforcement.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.  are taking long-awaited next steps to ramp up security of customer data as concerns over cyberattacks continue to mount. The plans, unveiled separately by the world's largest payments networks, include the expansion of tokenization-a way to obfuscate a customer's information during a transaction-and biometrics verification.

Tensions over cybersecurity are building between the U.S. and Beijing after the latest string of hacking attacks in the United States, some of which have been traced back to China. The two countries have dug in their heels on differing approaches to cybersecurity and don't appear ready to budge, experts say.

Earlier this month, just as tax season was nearing its peak, 19 states and Intuit - the maker of TurboTax software - noticed a surge of fraudulent state-tax filings prepared with TurboTax. The company responded by suspending electronic transmission of state returns for about 24 hours on Feb. 5 and 6.

By Cybercriminals have stolen up to $1 billion since late 2013 from banks across 30 countries, including the U.S., Russia, Europe and China, a computer security company says in the latest report to draw a red circle around the financial sector as a vulnerable target for hackers.

By Another day, another massive data breach that compromises customer privacy and costs companies millions of dollars. The most recent attack, reported last week, hit health insurer Anthem As many as 80 million customer accounts were compromised.And one of 2014's biggest stories was the hack on Sony apparently by North Korea.