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Something you’ll want to know about all those movies, mp3s, eBooks, air miles, and hotel points you’ve accrued over the years: they’re digital assets that can factor into a divorce settlement.
Understandably, several factors determine the distribution of assets in a divorce. However, when it comes to dividing digital assets, divorce settlements and proceedings are charting new territory. The rate of digital innovation and adoption in recent years has filled our phones, tablets, and computers with all manner of digital assets. What’s more, there are also the funds sitting in our payment apps or possibly further monies kept in the form of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Put plainly, the law is catching up with regards to the distribution of these and other digital assets like them.
Yet one thing that the law recognizes is that digital assets can have value and thus can be considered property subject to distribution in a divorce.
In light of this, the following is a checklist of considerations that can help prepare you or someone you know for the distribution of digital assets in a fair and just way.
Nothing offered in this article is legal advice, nor should it be construed as such. For legal advice, you can and should turn to your legal professional for counsel on the best approach for you and the laws in your area.
For starters, let’s get an understanding as to what actually constitutes a digital asset.
Because laws regarding digital assets vary (and continue to evolve), the best answer you can get to this question will come from your legal counsel. However, for purposes of discussion, a digital asset is any text or media in digital form that has value and offers the bearer the right to use it.
To put that in practical terms, let’s look at some real-world examples of what could constitute a digital asset. That list includes, but is not limited to:
However, digital assets can readily expand to further include:
And like any other asset in the case of a divorce, a value will be ascribed to each digital asset and then distributed per the conditions or orders of the settlement.
Arriving at the value of specific digital assets begins with an inventory—listing all the digital assets and accounts you own, just as you would with any other monetary or physical assets like bank accounts, properties, and cars. When you go through this process, chances are you’ll quickly find that you have hundreds if not thousands of dollars of digital assets.
For example, we can look at the research we conducted in 2011 which found that people placed an average value of $37,438 on the digital assets they owned at the time. Now, with the growth of streaming services, digital currency, cloud storage, and more in the past ten years, that figure feels conservative.
Above and beyond preparing for a divorce settlement, taking such an inventory of your digital assets is a wise move. One, it provides you with a clearer vision of the things you own and their worth; two, maintaining such a list gives you a basis for estate planning and determining who you would like to see receive those assets. Likewise, maintain that list on a regular basis and keep it safe. It’s good digital hygiene to do so.
With this inventory, each asset can then have an assessed value ascribed to it. In some instances, a value will easily present itself, such as the cost of a subscription or how much money is sitting in a PayPal account. In other cases, the value will be sentimental, such as the case is with digital photos and videos. Ideally, you and your spouse will simply be able to duplicate and share those photos and videos amicably, yet it is important that you articulate any such agreement to do so. This way, a settlement can call out what is to be shared, how it will be shared, and when.
Not all digital assets are transferrable. Certain digital assets are owned solely in your name. In other words, you may have access to certain digital assets that cannot transfer to someone else because you do not have the rights to do so per your user agreement. This can be the case with things such as digital books, digital music, and digital shows and movies.
In such circumstances, there may be grounds for negotiation and a “limited transfer” in the settlement, where one party exchanges one asset for another rather than splitting it equally. A case in point might be a sizeable eBook library on a device that’s in the name of one spouse. While that library can’t be split or transferred, one spouse may keep the eBook library while another spouse keeps a similarly valued asset or group of assets in return—like say a collection of physical books.
Streaming services will need to be addressed too. Be prepared to either terminate your accounts or simply have them assigned to the person in whose name they are kept. In the case of family accounts, the settlement should determine how that is handled, whether it gets terminated or similarly turned over to one spouse or the other. In all, your settlement will want to specify who takes over what streaming service and when that must occur.
Like dividing up investment accounts where the value of the account can vary daily, digital currencies can present challenges when spouses look to divide the holdings. Cryptocurrency valuation can be quite volatile, thus it can be a challenging asset to settle from a strict dollar standpoint.
What’s more, given the nature of digital currencies, there are instances where an unscrupulous spouse may seek to hide worth in such currency—which is an evolving issue in of itself. This recent article, “Cryptocurrency: What to Know Before and During Divorce,” covers the additional challenges of cryptocurrency in detail, along with an excellent primer on what cryptocurrency is and how it works.
Ultimately, cryptocurrency is indeed an asset, one that your attorney and settlement process will need to address, specifically so that there are no complications later with the transfer or valuation of the awarded currency.
With accounts changing hands, now’s the time to start fresh with a new set of passwords. What’s more, we have a tendency to reuse the same passwords over and over again, which may be known to an ex-spouse and is an inherent security risk in of itself. Change them. Even better, take this opportunity to use a password manager. A password manager can create and securely store strong, unique passwords for you, thus saving you the headache of maintaining dozens of them yourself—not to mention making you far more secure than before.
Again, keep in mind that nothing here is legal advice. Yet, do keep these things in mind when consulting with an attorney. The reality is that we likely have thousands of dollars of what could be considered digital assets. Inventorying them and ascribing a fair market value to them along with your legal professional is the first step in a fair and just settlement.
The post Digital Divorce: Who Gets the Airline Miles and Music Files? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Distance and hybrid learning environments are now the norm, and it remains to be seen if or when this will change. To adapt, many schools have adopted new software to support remote classroom management.
One such platform is Netop Vision Pro, a student monitoring system that helps teachers facilitate remote learning. The software allows teachers to perform tasks remotely on students’ computers, such as locking their devices, blocking web access, remotely controlling their desktops, running applications, and sharing documents. However, the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities with Netop Vision Pro that could be exploited by a hacker to gain full control over students’ computers.
Let’s dive into these vulnerabilities and unpack how you can help protect your students in the virtual classroom.
Just like a school science project, our researchers created a simulation to test their hypothesis regarding the potential software bugs. The McAfee ATR team set up the Netop software to mimic a virtual classroom with four devices on a local network. Three devices were appointed as students, and one was designated as the teacher. During the setup, the team noticed that there were different permission levels between student profiles and teacher profiles. They decided to see what would happen if they targeted a student profile, since this would likely be the avenue a hacker would take since they could cause more damage. With their experiment set up, it was time for our researchers to get inside the mind of a cybercriminal.
While observing the virtual classroom, the ATR team discovered that all network traffic — including sensitive information like Windows credentials — was unencrypted with no option to turn encryption on during configuration. They also noticed that a student connecting to a classroom would unknowingly begin sending screenshots to the teacher.
Furthermore, the ATR team noticed that teachers would send students a network packet (a small segment of internet data) prompting them to connect to the classroom. With this information, the team was able to disguise themselves as a teacher by modifying their code. From there, they explored how a hacker could take advantage of the compromised connection.
The McAfee ATR team turned their attention to Netop Vision Pro’s chat function, which allows teachers to send messages or files to a student’s computer, as well as delete files. Any files sent by a teacher are stored in a “work directory,” which the student can open from an instant message (IM) window. Based on the team’s discovery that a hacker could disguise themselves as a teacher, it became clear that hackers could also use this functionality to overwrite existing files or entice an unsuspecting student to click on a malicious file.
Of course, remote learning software is necessary right now to ensure that our children stay on top of their studies. However, it’s important that we educate ourselves on these platforms to help protect our students’ privacy. While the Netop Vision Pro student screen shares may seem like a viable option for holding students accountable in the virtual classroom, it could allow a hacker to spy on the contents of the students’ devices. While the functionality allows teachers to monitor their students in real-time, it also puts their privacy at risk.
If a hacker is able to impersonate a teacher with modified code, they could also send malicious files that contain malware or other phishing links to a student’s computer. Netop Vision Pro student profiles also broadcast their presence on the network every few seconds, allowing an attacker to scale their attacks to an entire school system.
Finally, if a hacker is able to gain full control over all target systems using the vulnerable software, they can equally bridge the gap from a virtual attack to the physical environment. The hacker could enable webcams and microphones on the target system, allowing them to physically observe your child and their surrounding environment.
Our researchers reported all vulnerabilities discovered to Netop and heard back from the company shortly after. In the latest software release 9.7.2, Netop has addressed many of the issues the McAfee ATR team discovered. Students can no longer overwrite system files, which could be used take control of the student machine. Additionally, Windows credentials are now encrypted when being sent over the network. Netop also told McAfee that they have plans to implement full network encryption in a future update, which will prevent an attacker from easily monitoring student’s screens and prevent them from being able to emulate a teacher.
While Netop works to remedy these issues internally, there are some critical steps parents can take to help protect and empower your children in the virtual classroom. Check out the following tips to bring you and your family peace of mind while using third-party education platforms:
If your student is required to use Netop Vision Pro or other third-party software while distance learning, have them use this technology on a device strictly used for educational purposes. If the software contains any bugs, this prevents other important accounts used for online banking, emails, remote work, etc. from becoming vulnerable to the software risks.
It’s important to keep in mind that Netop Vision Pro was never intended to be internet-facing or taken off a school network. Let’s look at this scenario through the eyes of a hacker: they will likely try to take advantage of these vulnerabilities by delivering a malicious payload (parts of cyberattacks that can cause harm) or phishing attempts. To protect your students from these threats, utilize a comprehensive security solution like McAfee® Total Protection, which helps defend your entire family from the latest threats and malware while providing safe web browsing.
Educators want to keep their students’ best interest and safety in mind, so talk to your child’s teacher or principal if you ever have concerns regarding the software they are using for distance learning. If your student is required to use Netop, ensure that the teacher or principal is aware of the vulnerabilities listed above so they can be sure to administer the necessary software updates to keep your child and their classmates safe.
A simple yet affective way to prevent hackers from spying on you and your family is to use a webcam cover for when class is not in session. Instruct your student to place a cover over their camera when they are not using it to bring you and your student greater peace of mind.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Keep Remote Classes Safe and in Session: What You Need to Know About Netop Vision Pro appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
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