Information on at least 30,000 customers of medical marijuana dispensaries across the US was left exposed on an unprotected database by THSuite, a cannabis industry point-of-sale software company. Details included full names, addresses, and cannabis varieties and quantities purchased, and although the leak has now been patched, "questions about the consequences of outing who uses a quasi-legal substance hang over the increasingly mainstream industry," Blake Montgomery writes.

Tinder users soon will have access to safety features that include a panic button triggering deployment of emergency assistance with precise location data, along with enhanced photo verification, which will require real-time selfies in an attempt to discourage fake profiles. Tinder's parent company says it will add the features to dating platforms such as PlentyOfFish and OKCupid this year.

Two cybersecurity bills have been proposed in the New York State Senate that would ban the use of taxpayer money to pay ransoms. One bill would create a fund to help local governments improve their cybersecurity.

Virtual reality and 3D printing are among technologies that will play a bigger role in courtrooms in the years ahead, writes Hil Hughes of Morrison & Hughes. In this commentary, he concludes by noting that expanded videoconferencing and better ways to share photos and videos will "allow for better communication of evidence to affect the outcomes of trials."

Samantha Green of Epiq examines key e-discovery cases from 2019 and breaks down why some judges levied sanctions and others did not. Green concludes her analysis by noting that sanctions, whether under Rule 37(e) governing electronically stored information or inherent authority, "are a sliding scale that depends on the facts and the judge's preferences."

Part of Washington state is allowing about 1.2 million people to vote by smartphone in a board of supervisors election. The move is being criticized heavily: Among others, University of South Carolina computer science professor and election technology specialist Duncan Buell asserts "a firm consensus in the cybersecurity community that mobile voting on a smartphone is a really stupid idea."

Emotet malware has returned with new functionality and a fresh round of attacks, reports the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Originally designed as a banking Trojan, Emotet now can scrape data and install multiple types of ransomware.

Text messages asking recipients to set delivery preferences for purported packages from FedEx are a scam, law enforcement officials say. A link in the text directs users to a fake Amazon listing that asks them to take a survey and asks for a credit card number, supposedly so the user can claim a "free gift."

The FDA warns that GE Healthcare's Clinical Information Central Stations and Telemetry Servers are vulnerable to attacks that could interfere with the monitoring of patients' vital signs. GE is working on software updates with security enhancements.

A partnership between TitanHQ and Pax8 will give Pax8 partners access to SpamTitan Cloud, an email security service, and WebTitan Cloud, which provides web content filtering. Pax8's chief channel officer says the deal will help Pax8 partners protect their clients more efficiently against malware, phishing, ransomware and other cyberthreats.