The FBI reports scammers are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal money and personal information, or both in some cases. The general public can protect itself and should do research before clicking on links purporting to provide information on the virus, donating to a charity online or through social media, contributing to a crowdfunding campaign, purchasing products online or giving up your personal information to receive money or other benefits. Schemes include:
·     Fake CDC emails used for phishing
·     Fake government program used for phishing attempts

Michael Wallace, an expert and program director for emergency and security studies in Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement, is a retired Navy intelligence officer and former senior intelligence analyst who worked on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Intelligence Directorate from 2013-2015. Wallace is available to speak on how COVID-19 affects the readiness of the United States military, both at home and abroad.

For interviews, contact pr@tulane.edu or Roger Dunaway at 504-452-2906. 

On September 26, with a little under one month before the presidential election, President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy left by the recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

While other justices have been approved in presidential election years, none has been voted on after July. Trump stated his motivation to rush the process is centered around his desire to have a fifth justice on his side should there be any disputes with the upcoming presidential election results.

Ashley Nelson, senior professor of practice at Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business, is available to speak about the current movement to ban TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social media app, from its more than 100 million American users.

Ashley is an expert in social media, executive communication and strategy and content development. Ashley can speak to:

Dr. Greg Stewart, sports medicine expert, director and the W. Kennon McWilliams Professor in Sports Medicine at Tulane University, is the newly-appointed chairman for the American Athletic Conference's newly formed COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group. Dr. Stewart is available to speak about the necessary daily steps that must be taken to ensure the health and safety of college football players, coaches and staff if the game is to return and continue this fall and what a stadium might look like on gameday.

Tulane University’s Kim Talus, the James McCulloch Chair in Energy Law and the founding director of the Tulane Center for Energy Law, is available to speak on Russia’s decision to halt natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

A new treatment that helps people with hemophilia A maintain higher levels of a crucial blood clotting factor with fewer treatments is a victory for patients, according to a new editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine this week by Dr. Cindy Leissinger, director of the Louisiana Center for Bleeding and Clotting Disorders at Tulane University School of Medicine. An estimated 20,000 people in the U.S. have hemophilia A, including almost 300 in Louisiana.

The holiday shopping season will take on a different look in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of lining up in long lines during the early hours on Black Friday, many consumers will choose to shop online this year.

Ransomware continues to be a hot topic as attacks against large and small organizations continue to rise. Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, which locks a person out of their computer until they pay a sum of money, usually in Bitcoin, which allows for relatively anonymous transactions.

Joseph Dalessandro, an expert and professor in information technology in Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement, breaks down the top cybersecurity threats and trends in 2020.  For interviews, contact pr@tulane.edu or Roger Dunaway at 504-542-2906.  Dalessandro predicts hackers will continue to focus on what works best and augment it with new and novel methods of attack. Here are his top five cybersecurity trends to watch in 2020.  1.