News

IT for government and public sector

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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’

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• July 22, 2024 22 Jul'24

  Ed Davey and Jo Swinson ‘handled’ by civil servants in Post Office cover-up, says Sir Alan Bates

  Evidence in public inquiry revealed how ministers in charge of Post Office were left in the dark at a time when campaigners, MPs and journalists were looking for answers