News

IT for government and public sector

• 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

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  French Supreme Court raises constitutional questions over EncroChat hacking secrecy

  Conseil Constitutionnel to decide whether ‘defence secrecy’ over state EncroChat cryptophone hacking breaches French constitution

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  Australia’s cloud market tipped to surpass $14bn in 2025

  The growth will be led by growing demand for software-as-a-service offerings as Aussie firms look to tap cloud services in their digital transformation efforts

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Zero-trust to soar in 2022, but dogged by implementation challenges

  IT leaders are keen to invest in zero-trust, but face issues around a lack of expertise, and selling the concept into the C-suite

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Reforms needed to tackle economic crime, says Treasury Committee

  The Treasury Committee is disappointed at progress towards tackling economic crime and fraud in both the online and offline worlds, and is calling for more action

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  MPs call on government to ‘push harder’ and ‘act faster’ amid online fraud epidemic

  MPs on the Treasury Committee want the government to act quickly to reduce the amount of money being stolen through online fraud

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  British Council data exposed by third-party cyber failure

  The British Council entrusted confidential data on its students to a third-party and was let down

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Saudi Arabia to invest billions of dollars in technology and startups

  Saudi Arabia announces $6.4bn investment in its tech sector as part of plans to diversify its economy

• February 01, 2022 01 Feb'22

  Check Point buys Spectral to safeguard cloud development

  Check Point’s latest acquisition of Israel-based startup Spectral expands its developer-centric security toolset

• February 01, 2022 01 Feb'22

  UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency appoints first CEO

  The government has named the first CEO of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency

• February 01, 2022 01 Feb'22

  Met Police faces legal action over Gangs Matrix

  Campaign group Liberty is taking legal action against the Met over its use of the Gangs Matrix, claiming it is driven by racial stereotypes and disproportionately affects people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds

• January 31, 2022 31 Jan'22

  UK has record year for tech IPOs in 2021

  Tech companies represented 29% of all UK initial public offerings last year, raising a record $6.6bn

• January 31, 2022 31 Jan'22

  Data on children of armed forces personnel exposed in breach

  Data on 4,142 children of serving armed forces personnel was exposed in a data breach at the Ministry of Defence

• January 28, 2022 28 Jan'22

  Cyber skills gap affecting data privacy practice, finds ISACA

  Organisations are struggling to fill both legal and technical privacy roles, with potentially damaging consequences, according to a report

• January 27, 2022 27 Jan'22

  CISOs must get out in front of Ukraine cyber crisis, says NCSC

  The National Cyber Security Centre is urging UK organisations to take steps to bolster their cyber security resilience in response to the ongoing Ukraine crisis

• January 27, 2022 27 Jan'22

  Novel phishing campaign highlights need for MFA, says Microsoft

  Microsoft details a new multi-stage phishing campaign that only affects victims without multifactor authentication in place

• January 27, 2022 27 Jan'22

  Nightmare Log4Shell scenario averted by prompt, professional action

  Prompt and professional community response to the Log4Shell disclosure means the dangerous and widespread vulnerability has not been exploited to the extent many had feared

• January 26, 2022 26 Jan'22

  More intel emerges on WhisperGate malware that hit Ukraine

  Security experts have been poring over the WhisperGate malware with which alleged Russia-backed entities targeted Ukrainian government websites

• January 26, 2022 26 Jan'22

  PwnKit bug endangers Linux distributions worldwide

  Qualys researchers share intel on a memory corruption vulnerability in a program installed by default on every major Linux distribution

• January 26, 2022 26 Jan'22

  Demands on Fujitsu to contribute to £1bn Horizon scandal compensation costs

  Fujitsu cannot hide away as taxpayers pick up the bill for the Post Office scandal triggered by its IT system, say peers

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  Prepare, but don’t panic, over supposed Russian cyber threat

  A fresh alert from the US Department of Homeland Security may have IT security teams jumpy over the possibility that their organisations could be targeted by Russian state actors

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  Cyber Essentials programme gets biggest update since launch

  NCSC implements a thorough revision of its Cyber Essentials scheme to reflect the changing security landscape

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  UK launches international data transfer council

  Businesses, academics and trade bodies convene to help the UK seize data-sharing opportunities

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  Subpostmaster campaign group to meet government over unfair compensation settlement

  A group of subpostmasters excluded from fair compensation in the Horizon scandal is to meet government department to discuss their demands

• January 24, 2022 24 Jan'22

  MPs say Online Safety Bill fails to tackle full range of harms

  A DCMS select committee has warned that the Online Safety Bill should be expanded to cover more types of harmful content, such as child abuse material designed to circumvent content removal

• January 24, 2022 24 Jan'22

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can ask Supreme Court to hear extradition appeal

  Senior judges said today that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can petition the Supreme Court to decide whether to hear an appeal against his extradition to the US

• January 24, 2022 24 Jan'22

  Outdated systems core to DWP £1bn pension underpayment blunders

  Old software is among the main reasons behind the pension errors affecting 134,000 people, says a House of Commons committee report

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  ICO criticises government-backed campaign to delay end-to-end encryption

  Data protection watchdog warns that delaying end-to-end encryption will put children at risk

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  MoJ faces ICO enforcement over subject access requests backlog

  Ministry of Justice receives enforcement notice from information commissioner over ‘substantial’ backlog of subject access requests described as being of ‘significant concern’

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  Government ‘has nothing against’ paying 555 subpostmasters fair compensation

  Government officials are open to finding a way to properly compensate victims of the Horizon scandal without setting a dangerous legal precedent

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  Data of 515,000 vulnerable people stolen in Red Cross attack

  The International Committee of the Red Cross is probing a cyber attack that has already seen the personal data of hundreds of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people compromised

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  MoonBounce firmware bootkit shows advances in malicious implants

  MoonBounce firmware bootkit shows evident technical improvements over others, making it a more dangerous threat to organisations. It is being used by Chinese state-backed actors

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  UK SMEs to receive tech skills and software boost

  A new government scheme aimed at helping businesses improve their productivity and sales online has opened for applications

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Government funds charity campaign to warn big tech over the risks of encryption to children

  Barnardo’s and other charities begin a government-backed PR campaign to warn of the dangers end-to-end encryption poses to child safety, which has been criticised as being ‘one-sided’

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Danish digitisation partnership delivers plan to government

  Public-private collaboration submits plan setting out “how Denmark can take advantage of the opportunities presented by digitisation moving forward into the future”

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Content removal will not stop misinformation, says Royal Society

  Censorship of scientific misinformation online could exacerbate feelings of distrust, so government should look at information literacy and funding fact checkers instead, says report

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Twelve million jobs to be lost to automation in Europe by 2040

  Millions of current jobs in Europe will be carried out by robots as software robots automate processes

• January 18, 2022 18 Jan'22

  Government widens subpostmaster miscarriage of justice compensation

  Government changes its position in billion-pound Horizon scandal compensation

• January 17, 2022 17 Jan'22

  Test police algorithms in court rather than legislate, Lords told

  Police algorithms and their impacts should be tested and challenged in court, rather than controlled by new laws, says policing minister

• January 17, 2022 17 Jan'22

  ‘Russian-backed’ hackers defaced Ukrainian websites as cover for dangerous malware attack

  Kiev claims that a hacking group in Belarus – a close ally of Russia – was responsible for hacking Ukrainian government websites amid threats of military action

• January 14, 2022 14 Jan'22

  Nato offers tech support after 'massive cyber attack' hits Ukraine

  Speculation mounts that Russia is behind a cyber attack which defaced Ukrainian government websites amid growing international tension

• January 14, 2022 14 Jan'22

  Socitm outlines public sector digital trends for 2022

  Report identifies the key areas of focus for technology decision-makers in government in the months ahead, across areas from cyber and data to digital identity and 5G

• January 14, 2022 14 Jan'22

  Microsoft veteran turns her attention to levelling up IT industry for women

  Diversity goes beyond balancing the internal workforce and should include working with partners that also have diversity as a core objective, says Gavriella Schuster

• January 14, 2022 14 Jan'22

  Post Office received £1bn taxpayer subsidy last year as part of IT scandal compensation

  The Post Office has received over £1bn in taxpayer subsidies for its Horizon scandal compensation scheme

• January 13, 2022 13 Jan'22

  Councillors refuse public release of IT audit of Hackney Psya ransomware attack

  Hackney councillors claim an IT audit report is exempt for disclosure as it relates to action taken in relation to the prevention, investigation or prosecution of crime

• January 13, 2022 13 Jan'22

  NCSC sounds alarm over Russia-backed hacks

  The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre joins US calls to be wary of Russian state interference in critical national infrastructure IT systems

• January 13, 2022 13 Jan'22

  ICO investigates police use of app to covertly record calls from mobile phones

  Surrey and Sussex police forces call in regulators after 1,000 police officers downloaded an app to covertly record phone calls on police-issued mobile phones

• January 12, 2022 12 Jan'22

  MEPs demand EU probe into Pegasus spyware abuse

  A group of European Parliament Members has called for an EU-wide investigation into NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware after it emerged EU member states may have used it