News

IT for government and public sector

• December 09, 2024 09 Dec'24

  Post Office senior leadership warned of IT project data safeguarding risk

  Post Office board members and senior executives have been made aware of the risk to data related to its ill-fated Horizon system replacement project

• December 06, 2024 06 Dec'24

  What do the home secretary’s policing reforms mean for the future of the Police Digital Service?

  The government is to create a new central body for policing with IT strategy in its proposed purview, but what does this mean for the Home Office-backed Police Digital Service?

• December 05, 2024 05 Dec'24

  Met Police challenged on claim LFR supported by ‘majority of Lewisham residents’

  A community impact assessment for the Met Police’s deployment of live facial-recognition tech in Lewisham brings into question the force’s previous claims to Computer Weekly that its use of the technology is supported by ‘the majority of residents’

• December 05, 2024 05 Dec'24

  Post Office Fujitsu contract extended by a year as decision time looms

  The Post Office has let contractors and third parties go as it completes its analysis of the future Horizon replacement options

• December 04, 2024 04 Dec'24

  Shared digital gateway was source of three NHS ransomware attacks

  Alder Hey children’s hospital confirms ransomware operators accessed its systems through a shared digital gateway, but is standing firm in the face of the gang’s demands

• December 03, 2024 03 Dec'24

  Australian utilities explore potential of AI

  Australia’s utilities sector is exploring and implementing AI to enhance grid stability, manage rooftop solar and prepare for the influx of electric vehicles

• December 02, 2024 02 Dec'24

  NCSC boss calls for ‘sustained vigilance’ in an aggressive world

  NCSC CEO Richard Horne is to echo wider warnings about the growing number and severity of cyber threats facing the UK as he launches the security body’s eighth annual report

• November 29, 2024 29 Nov'24

  Swedish authorities urged to discontinue AI welfare system

  Amnesty International is calling on Sweden’s social insurance agency to immediately discontinue its machine learning-based welfare system, following an investigation by Lighthouse Reports and Svenska Dagbladet that found it to be discriminatory

• November 28, 2024 28 Nov'24

  Fujitsu’s charity boss made redundant while Post Office scandal victims await support

  At a time when it could give something back to Post Office Horizon victims persecuted as a result of its faulty software, Fujitsu makes UK charity boss redundant

• November 28, 2024 28 Nov'24

  Chulalongkorn University debuts GenAI platform

  Thai university teams up with Google Cloud to empower its community with responsible and customisable AI tools for research, learning and administration

• November 27, 2024 27 Nov'24

  Post Office Capture users invited to pivotal meeting with government

  About 80 former Capture users have now come forward for legal support in making claims against the Post Office

• November 27, 2024 27 Nov'24

  Dutch politicians raise concerns over Big Tech reliance

  Dutch political parties have warned about the Netherlands’ growing reliance on US tech giants

• November 26, 2024 26 Nov'24

  Post Office scandal redress echoes Windrush compensation problems

  Campaigning former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates met with Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) over financial redress scheme

• November 26, 2024 26 Nov'24

  Russian threat actors poised to cripple power grid, UK warns

  UK government escalates cyber rhetoric in a speech at a Nato event, saying Russian advanced persistent threats stand ready to conduct cyber attacks that could ‘turn off the lights for millions’

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  Metropolitan Police officer dismissed for unlawfully accessing Sarah Everard files

  Over 100 Met Police officers and staff have been investigated for accessing sensitive data related to the Sarah Everard case, leading to the dismissal of a Roads and Transport officer who accessed the information while off-duty

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  Post Office scandal: How much deeper and wider can it get?

  It took decades to expose the Post Office Horizon scandal but that effort has laid the groundwork for others to seek justice and financial redress

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  Microsoft calls on Trump to ‘push harder’ on cyber threats

  Microsoft’s Brad Smith urges president-elect Donald Trump to keep the faith when it comes to fighting back against hostile cyber actors from China, Iran and Russia

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  Geopolitical strife drives increased ransomware activity

  The lines between financially motivated cyber criminals and nation state APTs are rapidly blurring, as geopolitical influences weigh heavily on the threat landscape, according to data from NCC

• November 22, 2024 22 Nov'24

  Convictions of Post Office Capture system users to be reviewed by statutory body

  Statutory body to look at the convictions of subpostmasters who used a pre-Horizon branch accounting system

• November 22, 2024 22 Nov'24

  NHS Federated Data Platform celebrates first birthday

  In its first year, more than 100 NHS organisations have signed up to the controversial platform, aiming to bring together data from different IT systems

• November 22, 2024 22 Nov'24

  Government looking into third faulty Post Office IT system

  The Department for Business and Trade will look into claims that a third Post Office branch system caused unexplained shortfalls that branch workers and subpostmasters were blamed for

• November 21, 2024 21 Nov'24

  BianLian cyber gang drops encryption-based ransomware

  The Australian and American cyber authorities have published updated intelligence on the BianLian ransomware gang, which has undergone a rapid evolution in tactics

• November 21, 2024 21 Nov'24

  Microsoft slaps down Egyptian-run rent-a-phish operation

  Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has conducted a successful takedown of almost 250 malicious websites used in the cyber criminal ONNX phishing-as-a-service operation

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  ORG urges ICO to revise public sector enforcement approach

  The Open Rights Group is urging the Information Commissioner’s Office to revise its light touch approach to public sector data protection issues, arguing that its experimental policy of limiting its enforcement actions to reprimands and notices, ...

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Apple addresses two iPhone, Mac zero-days

  Two zero-day vulnerabilities uncovered in Apple’s operating systems could have allowed for arbitrary code execution and cross-site scripting attacks

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Post Office to harness technology to automate scandal financial redress payments

  Technology that could speed up financial redress for subpostmasters is being worked on in-house by the Post Office

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Government issues strategic priorities for online safety regulator Ofcom

  Technology secretary Peter Kyle sets out the government’s strategic priorities for how Ofcom should approach regulating online safety, including embedding safety by design and supporting innovation in technologies to help protect people online

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Post Office project taking control of Horizon data from Fujitsu as part of messy split

  The Post Office will no longer rely on Fujitsu for Horizon data past and present once cloud migration project is complete, in a major uncoupling of the 30-year relationship

• November 19, 2024 19 Nov'24

  Post Office is paying lawyers too much, admits minister

  When pushed, a government minister admits the Post Office is paying lawyers too much money in relation to the Post Office scandal

• November 19, 2024 19 Nov'24

  Subpostmasters hit by Post Office scandal plan to meet over 'nuclear option'

  Members of campaign group Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance will discuss taking legal action in their pursuit of full, fair and final financial redress

• November 19, 2024 19 Nov'24

  Post Office scandal: Inquiry’s final phase exposes dysfunction past and present

  Conclusion of the seventh and final phase of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry hearings is another landmark in a scandal that has unfolded over a quarter of a century

• November 19, 2024 19 Nov'24

  UK government seeks AI innovators to support clean energy transition and pursuit of net zero by 2050

  The UK government has launched the second round of the Manchester Prize, which is geared towards using artificial intelligence technologies to assist with the clean energy transition

• November 18, 2024 18 Nov'24

  AWS widening scope of MFA programme after early success

  AWS reports strong take-up of multi-factor authentication among customers since making it compulsory for root users earlier this year, and plans to expand the scope of its IAM programme in spring 2025

• November 18, 2024 18 Nov'24

  Denmark’s AI-powered welfare system fuels mass surveillance

  Research reveals the automated tools used to flag individuals for benefit fraud violate individuals’ privacy and risk discriminating against marginalised groups

• November 18, 2024 18 Nov'24

  Post Office IT boss calls for subpostmasters to judge him on his actions

  Recently installed Post Office chief transformation officer tasked with replacing controversial IT system tells Computer Weekly the organisation’s leadership understands the challenges ahead

• November 15, 2024 15 Nov'24

  Post Office to decide on Horizon before April, Fujitsu board considers final contract extension

  Chief transformation officer tells Computer Weekly about ongoing work on replacing controversial Post Office Horizon system and extending contract with Fujitsu

• November 14, 2024 14 Nov'24

  MPs hold first ever debate on live facial recognition

  MPs have held an open debate on police use of live facial recognition technology for the first time since it was initially deployed by the Met Police in August 2016

• November 14, 2024 14 Nov'24

  Mike Potter’s departure leads to changes at the CDDO

  The government digital officer left his role in September, and government chief technology officer David Knott is currently leading the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) in the interim while permanent arrangements are agreed

• November 12, 2024 12 Nov'24

  Microsoft fixes 89 CVEs on penultimate Patch Tuesday of 2024

  High-profile vulns in NTLM, Windows Task Scheduler, Active Directory Certificate Services and Microsoft Exchange Server should be prioritised from November’s Patch Tuesday update

• November 12, 2024 12 Nov'24

  Zero-day exploits increasingly sought out by attackers

  Threat actors increasingly favour zero-day exploits to attack their victims before patches become available, according to the NCSC and CISA, which have just published a list of the most widely used vulnerabilities of 2023

• November 12, 2024 12 Nov'24

  Police cloud project raises data protection concerns despite legal reforms

  Ongoing data protection issues with the use of hyperscale public cloud infrastructure by UK police could complicate the ambitions of nine forces to move their common records management system into the cloud

• November 11, 2024 11 Nov'24

  Post Office scandal not caused by software errors, says combative Fujitsu boss

  During a sometimes heated appearance at the public inquiry, Fujitsu’s European boss Paul Patterson said the inquiry has shed light on who is to blame for the scandal

• November 11, 2024 11 Nov'24

  Fresh concerns over NHS England registries procurement

  Clinicians and technologists behind a number of medical devices registries being brought together by NHS England on a new common platform have accused the health service of flouting public sector procurement regulations

• November 08, 2024 08 Nov'24

  Government announces Green Paper on future of scandal-ridden Post Office

  Consultation process will enable a wide range of people to air their views on the future of the scandal-hit Post Office

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Post Office wrongly used public funds to pay for legal battle

  Senior civil servant’s appearance at public inquiry reveals Post Office broke spending rules when it diverted money to legal battle

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Google Cloud MFA enforcement meets with approval

  Latest Google Cloud policy to enforce multifactor authentication across its user base is welcomed by security professionals

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  AI a force multiplier for the bad guys, say cyber pros

  CIISec’s annual report on the security profession finds evidence of growing concern that artificial intelligence will ultimately prove more useful to threat actors than defenders

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Post Office appointing third-party reviewer of current Horizon system

  According to government representative on the Post Office board, an independent reviewer of Horizon is being appointed

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Government presses pause on Single Trade Window project

  The project to create a UK Single Trade Window, a digital gateway for traders, has been put on hold for the 2025/26 financial year as mounting costs cause concerns

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Interview: Petra Molnar, author of ‘The walls have eyes’

  Refugee lawyer and author Petra Molnar speaks to Computer Weekly about the extreme violence people on the move face at borders across the world, and how increasingly hostile anti-immigrant politics is being enabled and reinforced by a ‘lucrative ...