News

IT for government and public sector

• October 15, 2024 15 Oct'24

  UK government unveils AI safety research funding details

  Through its AI Safety Institute, the UK government has committed an initial pot of £4m to fund research into various risks associated with AI technologies, which will increase to £8.5m as the scheme progresses

• October 15, 2024 15 Oct'24

  Hillingdon Council commits £9m to tech revamp in digital strategy

  Hillingdon’s three-year digital strategy will see the council fund attempts to modernise its systems and infrastructure, change how residents interact with the local authority and make better use of data

• October 15, 2024 15 Oct'24

  NCSC expands school cyber service to academies and private schools

  The National Cyber Security Centre is expanding its PDNS for Schools service to encompass a wider variety of institutions up and down the UK

• October 15, 2024 15 Oct'24

  UK sees over £6bn boost in datacentre investments

  Following moves to classify datacentres as critical national infrastructure, a number of US tech providers have announced new UK investments

• October 11, 2024 11 Oct'24

  Post Office believes it took £36m from subpostmasters with unexplained losses

  The Post Office wrongly blamed subpostmasters for unexplained account shortfalls and made them cover losses out of their own pockets - then banked the money itself

• October 11, 2024 11 Oct'24

  Post Office set to axe in-house-developed New Branch IT software

  Troubled business may ditch its plan to build a new core branch system in-house and buy an off-the-shelf alternative

• October 10, 2024 10 Oct'24

  Government launches cyber standard for local authorities

  Local government bodies are being invited to take advantage of a new NCSC-derived Cyber Assessment Framework to help enhance their resilience and ward off cyber attacks

• October 10, 2024 10 Oct'24

  How Recorded Future finds ransomware victims before they get hit

  Threat intel specialists at Recorded Future have shared details of newly developed techniques they are using to disrupt Rhysida ransomware attacks before the gang even has a chance to execute them

• October 10, 2024 10 Oct'24

  UK and US pledge closer working on children’s online safety

  In their first agreement on the subject of children’s online safety, the UK and US governments have said they will create a new working group to boost cooperation

• October 10, 2024 10 Oct'24

  Post Office dragging its feet getting rid of tainted staff, despite government ‘green light’

  Former minister gave Post Office ‘green light’ to take robust action against existing staff with links to Post Office scandal wrongdoing

• October 09, 2024 09 Oct'24

  Under-fire Nick Read was unprepared for Post Office challenge

  Post Office boss Nick Read was not prepared for the task ahead of him when he joined the organisation as CEO in 2019

• October 09, 2024 09 Oct'24

  Five zero-days to be fixed on October Patch Tuesday

  Stand-out vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday drop include problems in Microsoft Management Console and the Windows MSHTML Platform

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  Secureworks: Ransomware takedowns didn’t put off cyber criminals

  The number of active cyber criminal ransomware gangs has surged by almost a third in the space of 12 months, according to the latest intelligence from Secureworks

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  Post Office IT transformation project was ‘set up to fail’, chairman tells inquiry

  Post Office interim chairman tells Horizon public inquiry that the Post Office needs to reset New Branch IT project

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  UK’s cyber incident reporting law to move forward in 2025

  The UK government says that enforced cyber incident and ransomware reporting for critical sectors of the economy will help to build a better picture of the threat landscape and enable more proactive and preventative responses

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  DWP CIO Rich Corbridge leaving to join property developer

  The digital chief at the Department for Work and Pensions is moving on only 18 months after starting his role in the civil service

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  Can the Post Office project to replace Horizon be rescued?

  Evidence from the Post Office public inquiry shows huge problems with the critical project to replace the troubled Horizon IT system – after two government-mandated reviews, is there any sign it can succeed?

• October 07, 2024 07 Oct'24

  Post Office boss Nick Read ‘inadequate, greedy and self-interested’, whistleblowers tell inquiry

  Outgoing Post Office boss Nick Read faces public inquiry for three days this week, with no shortage of questions to answer

• October 06, 2024 06 Oct'24

  Whistleblowers call out ongoing cover-up by Post Office CEO in explosive letter

  A letter from Post Office staff to MPs, statutory inquiry chair Wyn Williams and the Post Office chairman demands their intervention and an investigation into the organisation's leadership

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  NCSC celebrates eight years as Horne blows in

  Outgoing NCSC interim leader Felicity Oswald shares her thoughts on the body’s work over the past eight years as she hands over the reins to incoming CEO Richard Horne

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Post Office senior executive suspended over allegations of destroying evidence

  Statement to public inquiry reveals that investigation is underway over allegations that a senior Post Office executive instructed staff to destroy evidence

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Cups Linux printing bugs open door to DDoS attacks, says Akamai

  The Cups Linux printing vulnerabilities disclosed at the end of September would seem to have a nasty sting in their tail, according to researchers at Akamai

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Post Office recruiting tech-savvy board member amid unravelling IT disaster

  Public inquiry told that the Post Office is currently recruiting a tech-savvy non-executive director

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Late evidence in Post Office Capture investigation could not be reviewed

  Evidence failed to reach investigators in time for report into controversial pre-Horizon Post Office software

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Data and technology key to the future of the subsurface, report says

  The report highlights the important role of the subsurface, but lack of accessible data and the likely need for new policy and regulation on the use of new technologies are barriers to future sustainable and efficient use

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Detective wrongly claimed journalist’s solicitor attempted to buy gun, surveillance tribunal hears

  Darren Ellis, who led a surveillance operation against journalists who exposed police failures, wrongly accused a solicitor of attempting to buy arms

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  Ex-PSNI officer seeking legal advice over comments made at Investigatory Powers Tribunal

   Ex PSNI officer ‘deeply angered’ by comments made by a former detective at a tribunal investigating allegations of unlawful surveillance against journalists

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  Microsoft files lawsuit to seize domains used by Russian spooks

  Microsoft has been given permission to seize multiple domains used by the Russian state threat actor Star Blizzard as part of a coordinated disruption effort undertaken ahead of the US elections

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  SOC teams falling out of love with threat detection tools

  Security operations centre practitioners are fed up of being flooded with pointless alerts and many no longer have much confidence in their threat detection tools, according to a report

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  Local councils need ‘better support’ to buy AI responsibly

  The Ada Lovelace Institute says there is lack of adequate support on how councils can safely and responsibly procure artificial intelligence systems in the public interest

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  DSIT launches digital government panel

  The panel, which is being co-chaired by Martha Lane Fox and Paul Willmott, will help government create a 10-year vision for a ‘digital centre’

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  Post Office and Fujitsu: from blood brothers to bad blood

  Former Post Office chief transformation officer’s evidence to the public inquiry reveals organisation’s strained relationship with main IT supplier Fujitsu

• October 02, 2024 02 Oct'24

  Detective behind ‘unlawful’ surveillance blamed Catholics for ‘perverse’ court decisions

  A former detective claimed Irish judges were ‘sectarians in robes’ after a court found police had unlawfully arrested journalists who produced a film exposing collusion with paramilitary murderers

• October 02, 2024 02 Oct'24

  Post Office spending £80,000+ a week on engineers who can’t work, as IT project burns cash

  Revelation is latest evidence of the Post Office’s struggles to replace Fujitsu’s controversial Horizon software used in branches

• October 01, 2024 01 Oct'24

  Detective reported journalist’s lawyers to regulator in ‘unlawful’ PSNI surveillance case

  Former Durham detective Darren Ellis told the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that he had concerns about lawyers acting for journalists placed under surveillance by Northern Irish police

• October 01, 2024 01 Oct'24

  Cyber teams say they can’t keep up with attack volumes

  Over 60% of European security pros say their teams are understaffed, and over 50% don’t have enough budget, according to data from ISACA

• September 30, 2024 30 Sep'24

  Investigation finds 'reasonable likelihood' Post Office Capture software caused accounting losses

  An independent forensic analysis finds the predecessor to Horizon IT system was also likely to have caused shortfalls for which subpostmasters were blamed, years before the Post Office scandal

• September 27, 2024 27 Sep'24

  UK on high alert over Iranian spear phishing attacks, says NCSC

  The NCSC and counterpart agencies in the US have issued a warning over enhanced Iranian spear phishing activity targeting politicians, journalists, activists and others with an interest in Middle Eastern affairs

• September 27, 2024 27 Sep'24

  More parallels between Post Office Capture and Horizon scandal revealed

  Post Office dramatically increased the number of investigations into subpostmasters after Capture Software was introduced

• September 26, 2024 26 Sep'24

  Subpostmasters living years with disputed but unresolved debts to the Post Office, inquiry told

  Continued errors with the Horizon system mean subpostmasters have unresolved account shortfalls hanging over them for years

• September 26, 2024 26 Sep'24

  Government plans reverse pitch events to drive digital change

  The government will hold three events for startups to showcase and collaborate with the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice to solve key problems faced by the departments

• September 26, 2024 26 Sep'24

  Fujitsu accused of ‘paying lip service’ to Post Office scandal victims

  Victims of the Horizon scandal believe Fujitsu’s offer of support to be a 'box-ticking' exercise with no commitments, nine months after seemingly heartfelt pledges

• September 25, 2024 25 Sep'24

  Post Office IT procurement mess saw £35m spent on air conditioner, says board member

  Post Office IT procurement mistakes have wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers money, non-executive board member tells public inquiry

• September 24, 2024 24 Sep'24

  Unique malware sample volumes seen surging

  BlackBerry’s latest ‘Global threat intelligence’ report details a surge in unique malware samples as threat actors ramp up the pace of targeted attacks

• September 24, 2024 24 Sep'24

  Post Office IT department’s focus on chasing a discount meant botched procurement

  Post Office IT team and executives slammed for rushing into tech hardware purchase while eyeing a discount

• September 23, 2024 23 Sep'24

  Fujitsu faces financial challenges, with doubts over its commitment to righting Post Office wrongs

  Fujitsu worker tells Computer Weekly that firm only cares about shareholders and not subpostmaster suffering

• September 23, 2024 23 Sep'24

  Home Office eVisa scheme is ‘broken’, says Open Rights Group

  Digital rights campaigners say the Home Office’s plan to make its new electronic Visa scheme a real-time online-only process is part and parcel of the 'hostile environment' around immigration status

• September 23, 2024 23 Sep'24

  UK, US and Canada to collaborate on AI and cyber security

  International collaboration agreement will see the governments of Canada, the UK and the US work together to research, evaluate and test new defence technologies

• September 20, 2024 20 Sep'24

  UN body urges ‘globally inclusive and distributed’ AI governance

  A United Nations body set up to investigate the international governance of AI says the nature of how the technology currently operates requires a global approach to regulation that prioritises equity and inclusion

• September 19, 2024 19 Sep'24

  Post Office scandal victim becomes first to receive £600,000 under new redress scheme

  The compensation payment raises hopes that other wrongly convicted subpostmasters will receive payments far more quickly under new scheme