News

IT for government and public sector

• August 29, 2025 29 Aug'25

  ICO publishes summary of police facial recognition audit

  The UK data regulator has released a summary of its facial recognition audit of two police forces

• August 28, 2025 28 Aug'25

  Microsoft refuses to divulge data flows to Police Scotland

  Tech giant Microsoft is declining to share key information with Police Scotland about where the sensitive data it uploads to Office 365 will be processed, leaving the force unable to comply with UK-wide data protection laws

• August 28, 2025 28 Aug'25

  UK cyber security centre helps expose China-based cyber campaign

  GCHQ cyber security centre and its international partners release details of malicious cyber activity linked to Chinese businesses

• August 27, 2025 27 Aug'25

  Incident response planning cuts the risk of claiming on cyber security insurance

  Proper attention to incident response planning is emerging as a core cyber control when it comes to reducing the risk of having to claim on cyber security insurance, according to a report

• August 27, 2025 27 Aug'25

  PDS confirms ‘strategic restructuring’ with series of interim senior leadership hires

  The Police Digital Service has seemingly streamlined and revamped its senior leadership team, more than a year after two of its staff were arrested for suspected misconduct in public office

• August 27, 2025 27 Aug'25

  Home Office Fujitsu contract is ‘de facto’ conflict of interest in Post Office police probe

  Fujitsu supplies police with the network that supports national investigations, while its former staff are part of a national investigation

• August 27, 2025 27 Aug'25

  Ransomware activity levelled off in July, says NCC

  Ransomware levels held steady in the month of July, although the risk remained as persistent as ever

• August 26, 2025 26 Aug'25

  Three new Citrix NetScaler zero-days under active exploitation

  Citrix patches three new vulnerabilities in its NetScaler lines warning of active zero-day exploitation by an undisclosed threat actor

• August 26, 2025 26 Aug'25

  Okta makes AI identity play with Axiom acquisition

  Okta says Axiom Security’s technology will reinforce its own offerings in privileged access management, especially when it comes to the growing number of non-human identities

• August 25, 2025 25 Aug'25

  Ransomware attack volumes up nearly three times on 2024

  During the first six months of 2025, the number of observed and tracked ransomware attacks far outpaced the volume seen in 2024

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Moscow exploiting seven-year-old Cisco flaw, says FBI

  US authorities warn of an uptick in state-sponsored exploitation of a seven-year-old vulnerability in Cisco's operating system software

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Scale of MoD Afghan data breaches widens dramatically

  Many more data breaches at the MoD's Arap programme to relocate at-risk Afghan citizens to Britain have emerged following an FoI request by BBC journalists

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Apple iOS update fixes new iPhone zero-day flaw

  Latest Apple zero-day found in the ImageIO framework opens the door for targeted zero-click attacks on iPhone users

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  ICO investigates lawfulness of algorithms used in immigration enforcement

  The UK information commissioner is investigating claims that the use of algorithms by the Home Office to make recommendations on migrants breaches privacy laws

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Police investigation into Post Office scandal to cost more than £50m

  Metropolitan Police-led investigation into Post Office scandal is expected to run to 2030 and cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Subpostmaster federation accepted money from Fujitsu in run-up to High Court Post Office trial

  The National Federation of Subpostmasters accepted sponsorship money from Fujitsu in the run-up to a High Court case examining the IT firm’s faulty Post Office system

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  UK equality watchdog: Met Police facial recognition unlawful

  The UK’s equality watchdog has been granted permission to intervene in a judicial review of the Met Police’s live facial-recognition (LFR) technology use, which it claims is being deployed unlawfully

• August 21, 2025 21 Aug'25

  Judge throws out NHS whistleblower’s challenge to ruling on deletion of 90,000 emails

  Appeal tribunal dismisses doctor’s bid to quash decision that cleared London hospital trust of concealing evidence through attempted destruction of electronic documents during live court proceedings

• August 20, 2025 20 Aug'25

  Microsoft starts including PQC algorithms in cyber foundations

  Microsoft updates on its post-quantum cyber strategy as it continues integrating quantum-safe algorithms into some of the core foundations underpinning its products and services

• August 20, 2025 20 Aug'25

  Commvault users told to patch two RCE exploit chains

  Storage firm Commvault fixes four vulnerabilities that, when combined, create a pair of RCE exploit chains that could be used to target on-premise customers with ransomware and other nasties

• August 20, 2025 20 Aug'25

  Metropolitan Police contract with Fujitsu is ‘potential conflict of interest’ amid Post Office probe

  Freedom of information request reveals sub-contract between Fujitsu and the police force leading nationwide investigation of the IT firm’s part in the Post Office scandal

• August 19, 2025 19 Aug'25

  Google spins up agentic SOC to speed up incident management

  Google Cloud elaborates on its vision for securing artificial intelligence unveiling new protections and capabilities across its product suite

• August 19, 2025 19 Aug'25

  US says UK has agreed to drop encryption ‘backdoor’ demands against Apple

  US and UK end diplomatic row over UK encryption ‘backdoor’ order against Apple, but it remains unclear whether Apple will restore advanced encryption services to UK users

• August 18, 2025 18 Aug'25

  Workday hit in wave of social engineering attacks

  A campaign of voice-based social engineering attacks targeting users of Salesforce’s services appears to have struck HR platform Workday

• August 15, 2025 15 Aug'25

  UK cyber leaders feel impact of Trump cutbacks

  The ripple effects of US cyber security cutbacks have reached this side of the Atlantic, according to a report

• August 15, 2025 15 Aug'25

  Whitehall IT projects face complex challenges, Nista report finds

  The annual report from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority gives major police IT project ‘red’ rating, while several others are rated ‘amber’, including Gov.uk One Login and Making Tax Digital

• August 13, 2025 13 Aug'25

  Fujitsu orders staff to retain Post Office-related documentation as it braces for legal action

  Japanese supplier tells all UK staff to preserve documents related to its work with the Post Office

• August 13, 2025 13 Aug'25

  ODI tells EU to balance AI safeguards with innovation promotion

  The Open Data Institute has published a manifesto to guide European Union data and artificial intelligence policy formation

• August 12, 2025 12 Aug'25

  Eight critical RCE flaws make Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday list

  Microsoft rolls out fixes for over 100 CVEs in its August Patch Tuesday update

• August 12, 2025 12 Aug'25

  Researchers firm up ShinyHunters, Scattered Spider link

  ReliaQuest researchers present new evidence that firms up a potential link, or outright partnership, between the ShinyHunters and Scattered Spider cyber gangs

• August 12, 2025 12 Aug'25

  UK work visa sponsors are target of phishing campaign

  Mimecast identifies a phishing campaign targeting UK organisations that sponsor migrant workers and students, opening the door to account compromise and visa fraud

• August 11, 2025 11 Aug'25

  McCullough Review into PSNI spying on journalists and lawyers delayed

  Angus McCullough KC is to present findings of an independent review of police spying on phone data of lawyers, journalists and NGOs in Northern Ireland in October  

• August 11, 2025 11 Aug'25

  Watching the watchers: Is the Technical Advisory Panel a match for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ?

  Dame Muffy Calder is chair of the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), a small group of experts that advises the Investigatory Powers Commissioner on surveillance technology. Do they have what it takes to oversee the intelligence community?

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  Government looks at tech to tackle peak electricity demand

  Forecasting, AI, smart meters and electrical vehicle batteries are part of an ambitious project to reduce the use of fossil fuels on the UK's energy grid

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  Black Hat USA: Startup breaks secrets management tools

  Researchers at Cyata, an agentic identity specialist that has just emerged from stealth, found 14 CVEs in the widely used CyberArk Conjur and HashiCorp Vault enterprise secrets management platforms

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  Cyber criminals would prefer businesses don’t use Okta

  Okta details a phishing campaign in which the threat actor demonstrated some unusually strong opinions on what authentication methods they would like their targets to use

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  Companies House ID verification to start in November 2025

  Companies House plans to start vetting director identities from mid-November, but its reliance on the troubled One Login digital identity service may be cause for concern

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  NCSC updates CNI Cyber Assessment Framework

  Updates to the NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework are designed to help providers of critical services better manage their risk profiles

• August 06, 2025 06 Aug'25

  Australian scaleup to bring AI-led data protection to the MoD

  The UK’s Ministry of Defence is embracing AI-led data protection in the wake of a major privacy breach, enlisting Australian cyber firm Castlepoint Systems to oversee sensitive records

• August 05, 2025 05 Aug'25

  Attacker could defeat Dell firmware flaws with a vegetable

  Cisco Talos discloses five vulnerabilities in cyber security firmware used on Dell Latitude and Precision devices, including one that could enable an attacker to log on with a spring onion

• August 04, 2025 04 Aug'25

  Black Hat USA: Halcyon and Sophos tag-team ransomware fightback

  Ransomware experts Halcyon and Sophos are to pool their expertise in ransomware, working together to enhance data- and intelligence-sharing and bringing more comprehensive protection to customers

• August 04, 2025 04 Aug'25

  Proliferation of on-premise GenAI platforms is widening security risks

  Research finds increased adoption of unsanctioned generative artificial intelligence platforms is magnifying risk and causing a headache for security teams

• August 01, 2025 01 Aug'25

  Met Police to double facial recognition use amid budget cuts

  The UK’s largest police force is massively expanding its use of live facial recognition technology as it prepares to lose 1,700 officers and staff

• August 01, 2025 01 Aug'25

  Ministry of Justice unveils strategy for safe, secure AI

  A new chief AI officer, together with a framework co-developed with the Alan Turing Institute, form part of a three-year AI action plan at the MoJ

• July 30, 2025 30 Jul'25

  Scattered Spider tactics continue to evolve, warn cyber cops

  CISA, the FBI, NCSC and others have clubbed together to update previous guidance on Scattered Spider's playbook, warning of new social engineering tactics and exploitation of legitimate tools, among other things

• July 30, 2025 30 Jul'25

  MS Authenticator users face passkey crunch time

  The deadline for moving to passkeys in Microsoft Authenticator is rapidly approaching, and users are advised to take action now

• July 30, 2025 30 Jul'25

  AI-enabled security pushes down breach costs for UK organisations

  Organisations that are incorporating AI and automation into their cyber security practice are seeing improved outcomes when incidents occur, according to an IBM study

• July 29, 2025 29 Jul'25

  Austrian government faces likely legal challenge over state spyware

  Civil society groups are talking to opposition MPs about bringing a legal challenge to the Austrian constitutional court over ‘state trojan’ law

• July 29, 2025 29 Jul'25

  European Commission ignores calls to reassess Israel data adequacy

  The European Commission is ignoring calls to reassess Israel’s data adequacy status in spite of concerns raised about its data protection framework and use of personal data in ‘repressive practices’

• July 29, 2025 29 Jul'25

  Global cyber spend will top $200bn this year, says Gartner

  Worldwide spending on cyber security will hit another record high in 2025, and will go higher still next year