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Whether you work from a traditional office, home office, your iPhone, or on the road, a VPN is one of the best ways to protect yourself from data breaches on the internet, especially when using public wi-fi networks. But how effective are VPNs, and what's the best one for you? What are the downsides to using a VPN? Our executive guide will answer all your VPN-related questions -- including a few you probably haven't thought to ask. What is a VPN? VPN is an acronym for Virtual Private Network. The purpose of a VPN is to provide you with security and privacy as you communicate over the internet. Here's the problem with the internet: It's inherently insecure. When the internet was first designed, the priority was to be able to send packets (chunks of data) as reliably as possible. Networking across the country and the world was relatively new, and nodes often went down. Most of the internet's core protocols (communication methods) were designed to route around failure rather … [Read more...] about What is a VPN and why do you need one? Everything you need to know

NEW YORK — The Empire State Building's owners once envisioned floating airships docking with the skyscraper's spire, but windy updrafts forced the dirigibles to abandon that dream. Today, the world-famous building may stand for a more practical vision of the future that can save energy without dimming the lights. Recent renovations have allowed the iconic skyscraper to save on 20 percent of the energy used by its 20,000 workers and 3.5 million annual visitors — total building usage being enough energy in an hour to keep an average light bulb burning for over 100 years. The energy retrofit included elevators that harvest energy with regenerative braking, lights capable of turning on and off by themselves and the largest wireless network of sensors installed in any building in the world. "Saving energy without compromise in performance is what's going to save the world, and that's the work we set about doing at the Empire State Building," said Anthony Malkin, chief of the Empire … [Read more...] about Empire State Building Innovations Generate Big Energy Savings

Military drones are often used to store sensitive data, ranging from troop movements to strategic operations. While this may make them vulnerable to enemy interference, a new system is aiming to protect these unmanned aerial vehicles from cyberattacks. Researchers at the University of Virginia and the Georgia Institute of Technology developed the system and tested it in a series of live, in-flight cyberattack scenarios. As military and commercial drone use continues to grow , protecting against such attacks will become a priority, the scientists said. When installed on a drone, the System-Aware Secure Sentinel system detects "illogical behaviors" compared to those expected of the vehicle, said project leader Barry Horowitz, a systems and information engineer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. [ Rise of the Drones: Photos of Unmanned Aircraft ] "Detections can serve to initiate automated recovery actions and to alert operators of the attack," Horowitz said … [Read more...] about Cyberwarfare? New System Protects Drones from Hackers

Dmitri Alperovitch is a computer security researcher and co-founder & CTO of CrowdStrike Inc., which provides cloud-based endpoint protection. With expertise incybersecurity technology, policies and state tradecraft, Alperovitch also holds eighteen technology patents. This Op-Ed is part of a series provided by the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers, class of 2015 . Alperovitch contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights . Today, economic reliance on the internet is all-encompassing. With 40 percent of the world population now online, there is hardly an industry that has not been dramatically transformed and empowered by the communication and business opportunities created. But the very thing that has been such a powerful engine of global economic growth is now threatening to undermine it. Cyberthreats from hacktivists and terrorist groups, cybercriminals and nation states have had an impact on millions of companies, government … [Read more...] about How to Combat the Global Cybercrime Wave (Op-Ed)

No, it's not spooky, creepy Halloween — the most deaths occur on regular old Saturdays. Death can strike on any day of the week, but at Live Science we wanted to know if national data might reveal that some days are deadlier than others. To figure out which day of the week claims the most lives, we turned to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's Wonder database contains data on all deaths in the U.S. from 1999 to 2014, and we found that, all told, there were more than 39 million deaths over the course of these 15 years. (Keep that time frame in mind as you read on — the numbers below represent the total number of deaths for this period.) [ The Odds of Dying ] We found that, day by day, the breakdown was fairly equivocal, ranging from a low of 5.6 million total deaths on the Sundays during that period to a high of 5.7 million total deaths on the Saturdays of those years. Moreover, the top 10 causes of death on each day lined … [Read more...] about The Deadliest Day of the Week

The nations with the most car-accident deaths have been highlighted in a new report. On average, 18 out of 100,000 people on the planet die in car accidents each year, but that fatality rate varies widely across different countries. Namibia has the highest car-accident death rate, with 45 people killed on the road out of every 100,000 in the whole population. In the Maldives, meanwhile, just two people die in car crashes out of every 100,000 each year. [ List of Countries with Most & Least Car Crash Deaths ] In United States, there are 14 car-crash deaths per 100,000 people, and auto accidents account for 1.8 percent of all deaths. Americans are 13 times more likely to die of cancer and 10 times more likely to die of heart disease than they are to be killed on the road. In a map showing the geographic spread of car-crash fatality rates, many of the countries with the highest rates are clustered in Africa while most of the lowest rates are scattered across … [Read more...] about Countries with the Deadliest Roads Revealed

Football fans in Denver and Charlotte might want to be extra vigilant about hand washing during the Big Game this Sunday — a new study finds that cities whose teams play in the Super Bowl have an increase in deaths due to flu that year. The study analyzed information on flu deaths in U.S. counties from 1974 to 2009. It found that counties that had teams advance to the Super Bowl had an 18 percent increase in flu deaths among people over age 65, compared to counties that didn't have a team in the Super Bowl that year. The researchers focused on flu deaths among older adults because they are at high risk for complications from flu . The researchers suspect that Super Bowl parties and other social events that bring people together for the game lead to an increase in flu transmission, particularly for those areas that have teams playing. "You have friends over for a Super Bowl party. You all go out to a bar to watch the game. A bunch of people are cramped in a small space, and … [Read more...] about Super Bowl Teams’ Cities See Spike in Flu Deaths

Five causes of death account for nearly half of all deaths in children and adolescents worldwide, a new report finds. Globally, there were 7.7 million deaths among children and adolescents in 2013, according to the report.  The vast majority of these deaths — 6.3 million — were in children under age 5. There were about 480,000 deaths among children ages 5 to 9, and 970,000 in children ages 10 to 19. In 2013, the leading cause of death worldwide among children under 5 was lower respiratory infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis), which accounted for just over 900,000 deaths, according to the report, published today (Jan. 25) in the journal JAMA. [ Top 10 Leading Causes of Death ] The next four leading causes of death in this under-5 age group were preterm birth complications, neonatal encephalopathy following birth trauma and asphyxia, malaria and diarrheal diseases, according to the report. In older children, the leading cause of death in 2013 was … [Read more...] about 5 Causes Account for Nearly Half of Child and Teen Deaths

The rate of deaths from cancer appears to be declining worldwide, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed information from death certificates in 60 countries between 2000 and 2010. The total number of cancer deaths increased over this time period, due to the growing world population, and the fact that people are living longer. But the rate of cancer deaths — that is, the number of deaths per 100,000 people — declined by about 1 percent per year during the decade, the study found. In particular, there was a decrease in the rate of deaths from stomach cancer in almost all countries, a decrease in lung cancer deaths among men, and a decrease in breast and prostate cancer deaths in developed countries, according to the study. Part of the reason for the overall decline may be the decreasing smoking rates in developed countries, along with improved early detection and treatment of cancer, said study researcher Dana Hashim, a postdoctoral fellow in preventive … [Read more...] about Cancer Death Rate Declines Worldwide

Flu season has started, and although so far it has not been as bad as last year's, there have been reports of some young and middle-age adults developing severe cases of influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today (Feb. 1), the CDC announced that flu cases are increasing across the country. And although the nation as a whole isn't experiencing as much flu as this time last year, "some localized areas of the United States are already experiencing high activity, [and] further increases are expected in the coming weeks," the CDC said in a health alert to physicians . The most common flu strain circulating now is H1N1, the same strain of flu that caused a pandemic in 2009 . What's more, the CDC has received reports of severe flu illness developing in young to middle-age adults who are infected with H1N1. Some of these people needed to be admitted to the intensive care unit, and some died, the agency said. Most of these patients hadn't been … [Read more...] about Flu Season Is Here; CDC Warns of Severe Cases in Young Adults