News

IT for government and public sector

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Paid-for advertising still not covered in Online Safety Bill

  Consumer group Which? calls again for government to include measures against scam paid-for advertising in the Online Safety Bill

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  European Commission opens path to a Data Act to stoke digital economy

  The European Commission has published a proposal for a Data Act that it hopes will stoke a digital economy, in part by unlocking IoT and other ‘industrial data’

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Backups ‘no longer effective’ for stopping ransomware attacks

  Traditional methods of mitigating ransomware are less efficacious thanks to the rise in double and triple extortion techniques

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Microsoft extends Defender umbrella to Google Cloud Platform

  Redmond says extending Defender for Cloud native capabilities to the Google Cloud Platform will help simplify security for organisations pursuing multicloud strategies by eliminating the gaps where the bad guys can get in

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Police forces ‘must’ do data protection due diligence checks before using PDS-backed AWS cloud

  Police forces across England and Wales are being reminded not to overlook their data protection-related compliance responsibilities when making use of the Police Digital Service’s Amazon-powered cloud platform

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  No imminent cyber threat to UK from Russia

  Intelligence officials say they have no evidence or indication that Russian cyber attackers are preparing offensive assaults on infrastructure or organisations in Britain

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Tech acquisition to be major priority for UK police

  Policing minister cites technology as major focus for future of UK police, in comments made ahead of the publication of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales

• February 23, 2022 23 Feb'22

  Helsinki shares its plans to bridge post-Covid learning gap with the rest of the world

  Finnish capital is calling on global education systems to embrace technology as a facilitator of research, ideas and knowledge-sharing, not just as a new way to deliver classes

• February 22, 2022 22 Feb'22

  Gartner: Public sector must target disjointed IT strategy

  The pandemic showed how quickly public sector IT can deliver technology to support essential services – now it is time to fix scalability

• February 22, 2022 22 Feb'22

  Horizon inquiry questioning raises hopes of fair compensation for victims so far left out

  Post Office Horizon scandal victims left out of current compensation schemes have had their hopes raised that the statutory public inquiry is seriously addressing their demands for fair financial redress

• February 22, 2022 22 Feb'22

  UK organisations swift to chide phishing victims

  While UK organisations are doing better at security training, many are quick to punish employees who fall victim to phishing attacks, whether real or simulated

• February 22, 2022 22 Feb'22

  Sweden completes phase two of e-krona pilot

  Sweden’s central bank is well into its second year of testing a new digital currency, but so far, no firm decision has been made by the government to adopt it

• February 21, 2022 21 Feb'22

  UK joins US in pinning Ukraine DDoS attacks on Russia

  A series of DDoS attacks on Ukrainian defence and banking organisations last week is now being firmly attributed to Russian action

• February 18, 2022 18 Feb'22

  UK organisations untroubled by Trickbot surge

  A surge in Trickbot infections is targeting some of the world’s most prominent brands, but UK organisations seem thankfully unaffected

• February 18, 2022 18 Feb'22

  The British people are waking up to the scandal that happened under their noses

  Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been suffering in silence for many years, but the current public inquiry is giving them a voice, and people are listening

• February 17, 2022 17 Feb'22

  Helsinki helps lay the groundwork for cities to take on healthcare drones

  Finnish capital is part of a pan-EU project to introduce drone technology into emergency medical services

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  MPs demand urgent compensation for Post Office scandal victim group

  MPs have called for the government to urgently provide fair compensation to a group of victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal who have so far been left out of compensation schemes

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  2021 another record year for UK cyber investment

  Total revenue generated by the UK’s cyber sector was up 14% last year, and UK-registered security firms raised over £1bn in investment

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  DWP data sharing pilot aims for single source of the truth

  A pilot to share labour data across government departments aims to develop a safe framework for collaboration and to improve policy-making

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  DDoS attacks hit Ukrainian defence ministry and banks

  A further wave of cyber attacks has taken place against targets in Ukraine amid heightened tension in the region

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  CIO interview: Steve Williams, M&A lead and IT director, Waterstons

  Steve Williams is applying decades of CIO experience to the advice he gives businesses during major mergers and acquisitions

• February 16, 2022 16 Feb'22

  Nordic countries lack a unified approach to AI

  Nordic countries need to work together on a pan-regional artificial intelligence strategy

• February 15, 2022 15 Feb'22

  Australian public sector facing transformation challenges

  Public sector organisations in Australia are facing organisational and technological challenges in driving back-office innovation and digital-first strategies, new study finds

• February 15, 2022 15 Feb'22

  China emerges as leader in vulnerability exploitation

  Threat actors linked to China are emerging as a significant force in the weaponisation of newly discovered CVEs

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  UK government publishes plans to improve health and social care integration

  A white paper outlines measures including digital care records under move to help individuals receive “better, more joined-up care”

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  Why security professionals should pay attention to what Russia is doing

  Even though the average organisation is an unlikely target for a Russian state cyber attack, here's why security teams still need to watch what Russian threat groups are up to

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  Lords to scrutinise UK plans to become a science and tech ‘superpower’

  House of Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry will investigate the government’s strategy to advance its science and tech ambitions, how it will be delivered and its feasibility

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  The birth of Estonia’s digital civil servant

  As Estonia finalises the initial version of its government services digital assistant for launch later this year, the man heading the project describes the birth of Bürokratt and beyond

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  Hackney Council could be forced to answer questions about IT security training after Psya ransomware

  Council is negotiating with the information commissioner after refusing to reply to questions under the Freedom of Information Act about staff IT and security training during the pandemic

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  UK government starts search for new chief digital officer

  £190,000 job will lead digital, data and technology policy across Whitehall, in charge of the 200-strong Central Digital and Data Office

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  IR35 reforms: HMRC slammed for ‘over-collecting tax’ from non-compliant public sector bodies

  HMRC has moved to play down claims it is collecting more tax than it is due when tackling non-compliance with the IR35 reforms in the public sector

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  How diplomatic immunity silenced the prosecutor who coordinated Sweden’s EncroChat probe

  Defence lawyers claim Swedish court decision not to hear evidence from a Swedish prosecutor leaves important legal questions unanswered over international police operation to hack EncroChat cryptophone network

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  Interview: Eddie Copeland, director, London Office of Technology and Innovation

  The leader of the London Office of Technology and Innovation discusses local government’s response to the pandemic and its priorities for collaborative work around data and innovation in 2022

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  Government earmarks £23m for 2,000 AI scholarships in England

  The DCMS has confirmed £23m government funding for 2,000 scholarships in England for AI and data science Masters degree conversion courses

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Minister defends digital economy legislation before Lords

  A digital minister has said that the UK’s forthcoming digital markets legislation is ‘superior’ to similar efforts in the EU, but could not commit to a specific time frame for when it will be introduced to Parliament

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Linux-based clouds an open door for attackers, says VMware

  Its prevalence as a cloud operating system means Linux is becoming a meal ticket for malicious actors, but the security industry does not seem to have cottoned on to this yet, says VMware

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Ransomware ever more sophisticated and impactful, warns NCSC

  UK’s National Cyber Security Centre teams up with US and Australian partners in a joint advisory warning organisations of the increasing sophistication exhibited by criminal ransomware gangs

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Data strategy highlights geospatial data challenges

  A new assessment discusses the importance of data sharing, a lack of standards and the skills gap

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Microsoft stomps on 48 bugs in February Patch Tuesday update

  It’s a light Patch Tuesday for February 2022, as Microsoft issues fixes for just 48 CVEs, including a solitary zero-day

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Tech companies risk being compelled by law to protect children, says online safety expert

  John Carr, a child safety campaigner backing a government-funded campaign on the dangers of end-to-end encryption to children, says tech companies have no choice but to act

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Post Office scandal victims to tell their stories in public

  Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal are due to tell their devastating stories to the statutory inquiry

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Microsoft to start blocking macros to thwart malware

  Microsoft is making changes to web macro permissions across multiple Office apps to help improve user security

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  The Security Interviews: Building the UK’s future cyber ecosystem

  As the government lays out the next iteration of its Cyber Security Strategy, we speak to Plexal and Lorca’s Saj Huq about his work building a cyber ecosystem to support the UK’s future ambitions

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Porn sites will be legally required to verify users’ ages

  Porn sites could be legally obliged to verify that their users are 18 or over under proposed online safety rules, in UK government’s second attempt to prevent children from accessing pornography online

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Nvidia’s Arm deal is dead

  ‘Significant regulatory challenges’ have prevented Nvidia in its $31bn attempt to purchase chipmaker Arm

• February 07, 2022 07 Feb'22

  Global IT companies ready to fight for Russian market

  International IT firms have begun the process of complying with the latest regulations imposed on them by the Russian government

• February 07, 2022 07 Feb'22

  Met police deploy facial recognition in Westminster

  Police facial recognition deployment resulted in four arrests, but questions remain about the necessity, proportionality and legality of the technology’s use

• February 04, 2022 04 Feb'22

  Cyber attacks on European oil facilities spreading

  Following a cyber attack on distribution facilities in Germany, more incidents have been reported in Belgium and the Netherlands, but it is too early to necessarily draw a link between them

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  EC proposes new directive to improve gig economy work conditions

  Gig economy workers in Europe could be entitled to more rights and better workplace protections under a directive proposed by the European Commission

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  Cack-handed government compensation scheme prolongs suffering of Horizon scandal victims

  Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal are being denied the millions of pounds they are owed as the government delays compensation resolution