News
IT for government and public sector
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August 20, 2024
20
Aug'24
ICO launches privacy notice tool for SMEs
ICO tool designed to make it easier for small businesses and sole traders operating online to create bespoke data privacy notices for compliance purposes
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August 20, 2024
20
Aug'24
Phishing links becoming bigger threat than email attachments
Phishing techniques are evolving away from malicious email attachments, according to a report
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August 20, 2024
20
Aug'24
Post Office systems crash hits 'collapsing' Horizon system
Thousands of subpostmasters were unable to log into the controversial Horizon IT system at the start of business
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August 20, 2024
20
Aug'24
Helsinki braced for elevated cyber attacks
The City of Helsinki is increasing its collaboration with cyber security and crime investigators following a major attack on its systems
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August 19, 2024
19
Aug'24
NHS England plans EPR for prisons and detention centres
The government is looking to procure an electronic patient record system with the aim of improving health records access for individuals in the justice system
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August 16, 2024
16
Aug'24
Campaigners criticise Starmer post-riot public surveillance plans
A UK government programme to expand police facial recognition and information sharing after racist riots is attracting criticism from campaigners for exploiting the far-right unrest to generally crack down on protest and increase surveillance
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August 14, 2024
14
Aug'24
August Patch Tuesday proves busy with six zero-days to fix
Microsoft patches six actively exploited zero-days among over 100 issues during its regular monthly update
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August 14, 2024
14
Aug'24
Newcastle City Council swaps out Oracle Java for Azul
Changes to Oracle’s Java licensing meant the council no longer received free security patches
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August 14, 2024
14
Aug'24
Automated police tech contributes to UK structural racism problem
Civil society groups say automated policing technologies are helping to fuel the disparities that people of colour face across the criminal justice sector, as part of wider warning about the UK’s lack of progress in dealing with systemic racism
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August 14, 2024
14
Aug'24
IR35 public sector reforms: HS2 finalises £6.2m settlement with HMRC over compliance failings
After setting aside over £10m to cover its IR35 compliance liabilities, HS2 accounts confirm the organisation reached a final settlement with HMRC totalling £6.2m
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August 13, 2024
13
Aug'24
NIST debuts three quantum-safe encryption algorithms
NIST has launched the first three quantum-resistant encryption algorithms, and as the threat of quantum-enabled cyber attacks grows greater, organisations are encouraged to adopt them as soon as they can
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August 12, 2024
12
Aug'24
Social care must ensure IT systems comply with data standards
As social care is moving towards meeting its target of 80% of providers having digital records, the Department for Health and Social Care calls on them to ensure the digital systems meet national standards
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August 08, 2024
08
Aug'24
Royal ransomware crew puts on a BlackSuit in rebrand
The Royal ransomware gang is back, with a new name and refreshed capabilities, including an apparently unique ‘partial encryption’ gambit, according to CISA
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August 08, 2024
08
Aug'24
US lawmakers seek to brand ransomware gangs as terrorists
Proposals from legislators in Washington DC could shake up the global ransomware ecosystem and give law enforcement sweeping new powers
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August 06, 2024
06
Aug'24
Advanced faces fine over LockBit attack that crippled NHS 111
Advanced Software faces a multimillion pound fine for a series of failings which directly led to a 2022 LockBit ransomware attack that disrupted NHS and social care services across the UK
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August 06, 2024
06
Aug'24
2024 seeing more CVEs than ever before, but few are weaponised
The number of disclosed CVEs soared by 30% in the first seven-and-a-half months of the year, but a tiny fraction of these have been exploited by threat actors, a reminder of the importance of focused security strategies
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August 06, 2024
06
Aug'24
IR35 public sector reforms: Chancellor urged to review departmental costs generated by blanket bans
Chancellor Rachel Reeves urged to review ‘non-essential’ departmental spend since the introduction of IR35 reforms in April 2017 as part of her push to close £22bn public spending gap inherited from the Conservatives
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August 05, 2024
05
Aug'24
Chinese cyber attack sparks alert over six-year-old MS vuln
After a proof-of-concept for a six-year-old Microsoft vulnerability emerged in a Chinese APT attack chain, defenders should be on the look-out for exploitation of CVE-2018-0824
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August 05, 2024
05
Aug'24
World’s largest companies at near-universal risk of supply chain breach
Data from SecurityScorecard once again focuses on the interconnected nature of business supply chains and the risk posed to operational resilience by unexpected IT problems and cyber threats
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August 05, 2024
05
Aug'24
Russia’s luxury car phish continues to prove effective
Government organisations and other bodies operating in Ukraine continue to be targeted by a relatively unsophisticated phishing campaign that has proven so effective for Russia’s cyber spooks that there are now multiple agencies involved
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August 05, 2024
05
Aug'24
Post Office scandal: Phases 5 and 6 had islands of conscientiousness in great depths of neglect
Computer Weekly rounds up the latest phase of the Post Office Horizon scandal public inquiry after a marathon 16 weeks of questions
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August 02, 2024
02
Aug'24
Labour axes £1.3bn AI funding promised by the Conservatives
Government scraps £1.3bn worth of AI and tech programmes launched by the Conservatives, but says it is committed to building technology infrastructure in the UK through its AI Opportunities Action Plan
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August 01, 2024
01
Aug'24
Police hunt scammers after takedown of Russian Coms fraud platform
The National Crime Agency has arrested four people after taking down a phone number spoofing platform used by criminals to defraud hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with more arrests to follow
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August 01, 2024
01
Aug'24
Scottish government to roll out digital evidence sharing
Following a controversial pilot scheme, Scotland is investing £33m in deploying digital evidence sharing technology nationally
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August 01, 2024
01
Aug'24
Community care neglected in national digital transformation efforts
Digital technologies could help the government’s ambition of delivering care at home for longer, but community services suffer from a lack of basic technologies and access to funding, according to the King’s Fund
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July 31, 2024
31
Jul'24
Police Digital Service confirms resignation of second director in two weeks
Companies House filing states the Police Digital Service has said goodbye to non-executive director Allan Fairley, with a representative from the company confirming his departure is for ‘conflict of interest’ reasons
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July 31, 2024
31
Jul'24
Mayor launches London Privacy Register for smart city information
To increase transparency around and trust in London’s smart city technology deployments, the London Privacy Register aims to provide the public with more information about the systems they encounter in their day-to-day lives
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July 30, 2024
30
Jul'24
How India is driving road safety with technology
Traffic departments, law enforcers and new-tech players are betting on technology tools such as AI-powered drones and mobile apps to improve road safety across India
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July 30, 2024
30
Jul'24
Basic failures led to hack of Electoral Commission data on 40 million people
UK government identifies Chinese state-linked hackers as likely to have been behind attack on the Electoral Commission
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July 30, 2024
30
Jul'24
Core British Library services to return for new academic year
The British Library’s recovery from a devastating ransomware attack that laid waste to its IT systems continues - with hopes that some of its most popular services will be running again in September
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July 30, 2024
30
Jul'24
GP digital tools could cause patients harm, says report
Investigation by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body finds some online tools used in general practices could cause risk to patient safety and impact GP workload
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July 30, 2024
30
Jul'24
Government commits at least £540m to financial redress for wrongfully convicted Post Office staff
Hundreds of eligible former subpostmasters and branch staff are yet to come forward to have convictions overturned, but government hopes new scheme will encourage them to do so
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July 29, 2024
29
Jul'24
UK government sets up AI action plan unit
New government has ambitious plans to use artificial intelligence to grow the economy, and has hired a tech entrepreneur to help guide the strategy
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July 29, 2024
29
Jul'24
Scam CrowdStrike domains growing in volume
Hundreds of malicious domains exploiting CrowdStrike’s branding are appearing all over the web in the wake of the 19 July outage. Experts from Akamai share some noteworthy examples, along with guidance on how to avoid getting caught out
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July 29, 2024
29
Jul'24
CrowdStrike says most Falcon sensors now up and running
The vast majority of CrowdStrike Falcon sensors affected by a coding error have now been recovered, with a final resolution expected this week
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July 29, 2024
29
Jul'24
WTO digital trade agreement aims to modernise global commerce
A digital trade deal negotiated over five years at the World Trade Organization has been signed by 91 countries, laying the groundwork for a new global digital trade regime
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July 29, 2024
29
Jul'24
UK government invests £106m in five quantum tech hubs
Five university hubs are receiving funding to support the development of quantum applications that can support healthcare and businesses
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July 26, 2024
26
Jul'24
Ban predictive policing and facial recognition, says civil society
A coalition of civil society groups is calling for an outright ban on predictive policing and biometric surveillance in the UK
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July 26, 2024
26
Jul'24
Vince Cable says the Post Office ‘lied’ to the government over Horizon issues
In the latest Post Office scandal public inquiry hearings, Vince Cable and Greg Clark reflected on their time as the minister heading the department responsible for the Post Office
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July 25, 2024
25
Jul'24
North Korean cyber APT targeting nuclear secrets
Mandiant has upgraded the North Korean threat actor known as Andariel to APT status and warned of coordinated efforts to steal western military IP, including nuclear secrets
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July 25, 2024
25
Jul'24
India bolsters digital agriculture and space tech in Budget 2024
India will extend its digital public infrastructure to the agriculture sector and set up a venture capital fund for space startups, among other tech initiatives in its latest Budget
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July 24, 2024
24
Jul'24
CrowdStrike blames outage on content configuration update
CrowdStrike publishes the preliminary findings of what will be a lengthy investigation into the root causes of the failed 19 July update that caused Windows computers to crash all over the world
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July 24, 2024
24
Jul'24
Mimecast to buy insider threat specialist Code42
Mimecast is to buy fellow human-centred risk experts Code42 for an undisclosed sum to take advantage of its insider threat and data loss protection specialisms
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July 24, 2024
24
Jul'24
Post Office ‘acted the victim’ and civil servants ‘abandoned their principles’, says former minister
Former government minister tells inquiry the Post Office always played the victim of subpostmasters that it considered either ‘incompetent’ or ‘criminal’
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July 24, 2024
24
Jul'24
ICO reprimands Essex school for illegal facial recognition use
The Information Commissioner’s Office has reprimanded Chelmer Valley High School in Chelmsford for introducing facial recognition and failing to conduct a legally required data protection impact assessment and obtain the explicit consent of students
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July 24, 2024
24
Jul'24
WhatsApp and Signal messages at risk of surveillance following EncroChat ruling, court hears
Defence lawyers seek leave to appeal a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that the National Crime Agency lawfully obtained warrants to intercept messages sent over an encrypted phone network
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July 23, 2024
23
Jul'24
NCA seizes thousands of social media accounts used by people smugglers
A three-year campaign has seen thousands of social media posts and accounts used to advertise the services of illegal people smugglers taken down
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July 23, 2024
23
Jul'24
Former minister felt she was fighting department over Post Office controversy
Former government minister was fighting with Shareholder Executive officials as she probed for information following allegations brought to her by MPs
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July 22, 2024
22
Jul'24
NCSC: Beware of criminal CrowdStrike opportunists
Financially motivated cyber criminals are already conducting opportunistic attacks on organisations that leverage the CrowdStrike incident, and more targeted attacks are sure to follow
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July 22, 2024
22
Jul'24
CrowdStrike chaos shows risks of concentrated ‘big IT’
The concentration of so much mission-critical technology in the hands of a few large suppliers makes incidents like the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage all the more dangerous