News

IT for government and public sector

• June 21, 2013 21 Jun'13

  ICO takes further action on Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data

  The ICO has taken further action against Google over the collection of Wi-Fi data by its Street View cars, but has stopped short of a monetary penalty

• June 21, 2013 21 Jun'13

  UK businesses failing to secure virtual environments, study finds

  Most UK businesses are failing to secure data in virtual environments, a survey of IT decision makers has revealed

• June 21, 2013 21 Jun'13

  Government launches cyber awareness campaign

  UK government debuts the first stage of a £4m cyber awareness campaign as part of the National Cyber Security Programme

• June 21, 2013 21 Jun'13

  EU data protection regulators begin action against Google

  Privacy regulators across Europe are beginning to take action against Google for failing to change the way it manages user data

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  Vodafone to build public sector network in Ireland

  The Irish arm of the mobile network is chosen by the government to build a fibre network exclusively for public sector organisations

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  Data linkage shows correlation in mental and physical health

  The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has used data linking analysis to find mental health service users have double the rate of hospital attendances compared with the general population

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  Camden Council goes BYOD with Accellion

  Camden adopts a bring your own device (BYOD) strategy to save money, improve security and bring their IT systems into the modern era

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  LinkedIn social networking site hit by DNS hijacking

  Professional networking site LinkedIn has been hit by a DNS hijacking attack, but the service appears to have been restored after two breaks

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  DuckDuckGo trebles searches after Prism surveillance scandal

  DuckDuckGo, which does not track users' activities, has shot to prominence since US Prism online monitoring programme was revealed

• June 20, 2013 20 Jun'13

  Microsoft offers cash rewards for security bug hunters

  Microsoft unveils security bounty programmes to improve its products through responsible disclosure of flaws that could be exploited by hackers

• June 19, 2013 19 Jun'13

  Government IT is profession most reliant on external recruits

  Senior civil servants working in IT are more likely to be recruited from the private sector than any other profession across government

• June 19, 2013 19 Jun'13

  Lock up admin accounts to defeat hackers, says Cyber-Ark

  Hackers typically target privileged admin accounts to gain access to all computer systems, says David Higgins, senior sales manager Cyber-Ark

• June 19, 2013 19 Jun'13

  BT CEO Ian Livingston quits to become government minister

  BT chief executive Ian Livingston is leaving the telecoms giant in September to become a government minister

• June 19, 2013 19 Jun'13

  G8 publishes Open Data Charter

  The G8 nations have committed to open data, with a promise to produce action plans for the release of government information

• June 19, 2013 19 Jun'13

  Met Police needs significant tech investment to overhaul creaking legacy systems

  The Metropolitan Police needs significant capital investment in technology if it is to overhaul its legacy IT infrastructure

• June 18, 2013 18 Jun'13

  Worldwide government IT spending to remain flat in 2013, says Gartner

  Government organisations worldwide will spend 0.1% less on IT this year, but cloud computing, mobile technologies and IT modernisation remain top IT priorities

• June 18, 2013 18 Jun'13

  Civil servants to increase IaaS and SaaS CloudStore spend

  Government departments are likely to buy more infrastructure and software services from the CloudStore this year, finds research

• June 18, 2013 18 Jun'13

  Investigation into Post Office accounting system to drill down on strongest cases

  The investigation into the Post Office’s allegedly faulty accounting system will focus on a select few of the 47 claims

• June 18, 2013 18 Jun'13

  Yahoo joins tech firms declaring US data request numbers

  Yahoo is the latest technology firm to reveal statistics on US government surveillance requests

• June 18, 2013 18 Jun'13

  PM calls meeting to tackle online porn

  Prime Minister David Cameron has called a meeting with internet firms to discuss ways of blocking images of child sex abuse and to prevent children from viewing pornography online

• June 17, 2013 17 Jun'13

  Lancashire NHS Trust deploys Yellowfin mobile BI to enhance care

  NHS Trust is using a mobile business intelligence system from Yellowfin to improve clinician performance and patient healthcare

• June 17, 2013 17 Jun'13

  Denise McDonagh awarded CBE for services to IT

  Former G-Cloud head Denise McDonagh has been awarded a CBE for services to IT in the Queen’s birthday honours list 2013

• June 14, 2013 14 Jun'13

  TSB provides £1m for government grand innovation challenge

  The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) will provide the £1m prize money for the government’s grand innovation challenge

• June 14, 2013 14 Jun'13

  NHS awards multi-million pound private cloud contract to Manchester-based ANS

  Greater Manchester Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) has signed a three-year multi-million pound cloud contract with ANS

• June 14, 2013 14 Jun'13

  Cameron to launch Information Economy Strategy

  David Cameron has announced the launch of the government’s Information Economy Strategy

• June 14, 2013 14 Jun'13

  Government backtracks on its preference for open source

  The government has quietly backtracked from its publicly declared preference for using open source over proprietary software

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  Whitehall must unify management information, says Martin Read

  A report by former Logica CEO Martin Read advocates a more unified approach to using management information across Whitehall

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  NPfIT legacy: NHS yet to spend £600m on CSC Lorenzo patient records

  The NHS has still to spend £600m on CSC's Lorenzo patient record system as a legacy of the defunct National Programme for IT (NPfIT)

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  Cyber attacks top banking risk, says Bank of England

  Cyber attacks are the top risk for UK banks, says Andrew Haldane, director of financial stability at the Bank of England

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  Iran Gmail phishing attacks up ahead of election, says Google

  Phishing attacks are targeting tens of thousands of Gmail users in Iran in the run up to elections in the country, say Google security researchers

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  Google faces fresh calls for tax investigation

  The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is calling for a full investigation of Google’s alleged tax evasion practices in the UK

• June 13, 2013 13 Jun'13

  US repeatedly hacked China, claims NSA whistleblower

  The US has been hacking Hong Kong and China since 2009, says former technical assistant for the CIA, Edward Snowden

• June 12, 2013 12 Jun'13

  Senior judge hears Barnet Council outsourcing challenge

  The second most senior judge in England and Wales will hear a legal challenge against Barnet Council’s outsourcing programme

• June 12, 2013 12 Jun'13

  UK cloud users more positive about security than non-users, study shows

  UK SMEs see security, privacy and reliability benefits in cloud-based services, a study from comScore shows

• June 12, 2013 12 Jun'13

  Universities minister David Willetts backs Chinese telecoms firm Huawei

  Universities and science minister David Willetts praises Huawei a week after the ISC voiced concerns over its involvement in UK infrastructure

• June 12, 2013 12 Jun'13

  Technology companies call for more transparency over data requests

  Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft call on US government to allow them to publish greater detail about requests to hand over user data

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  Frimley Park NHS deploys VDI for efficiency and BYOD

  When the NHS trust came under pressure to make its IT budget go further, it opted to deploy VDI in its A&E department

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  CISOs must shape up or ship out, says Forrester

  Chief information security officers (CISOs) must evolve into data risk managers if they are to survive in the future, says Forrester Research

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  BAE Systems latest to join cyber security skills drive

  Aerospace and defence company BAE Systems joins the race to help plug the UK cyber security skills gap

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  Security tech market set to grow 8.7% in 2013, says Gartner

  The worldwide security technology and services market will reach $67.2bn in 2013, up 8.7% from 2012, according to research firm Gartner

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  Israel says Iran’s cyber attacks are incessant

  Israel has accused Iran of carrying out incessant cyber attacks on its computer systems

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  Apple unveils iOS 7

  Apple has unveiled the latest version of its mobile operating system, saying iOS 7 is the most significant update since the original iPhone

• June 11, 2013 11 Jun'13

  UK links to US internet surveillance remain unclear

  The government insists that UK spy agencies operate within the law, but questions remain

• June 10, 2013 10 Jun'13

  Zero trust model key to security success, says Forrester

  The principles of network confidentiality, integrity and availability are not balanced, says John Kindervag, principal analyst at Forrester Research

• June 10, 2013 10 Jun'13

  NSA surveillance whistleblower reveals identity

  Former technical assistant for the CIA, Edward Snowden, reveals his identity as the whistleblower of US surveillance programmes

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  NAO to judge ‘value for money’ of rural broadband scheme

  The independent auditor promises a report by the end of summer on DCMS' handling of BDUK broadband scheme

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  IT industry alliance to sponsor cyber security skills

  IT organisations have set up a sponsorship scheme to encourage people to acquire the cyber security skills to protect UK business

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  NHS numbers to be mandated by 2014

  NHS providers must use an NHS number to identify all patient data, Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England announces

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  School initiative launched to fill cyber security skills gap

  The UK’s search for cyber security talent is being taken into schools for the first time

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  PM urged to criminalise internet rape porn

  Campaigners are calling for the criminalisation of possessing internet pornography depicting rape

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  ICO fines Glasgow City Council for loss of unencrypted laptops

  Glasgow City Council has been fined £150,000 for losing two laptops which held personal details of more than 20,000 people

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  FBI spies on internet users

  Revelations that the FBI and National Security Agency tap into nine US internet firms implicate Facebook, Apple and Google

• June 07, 2013 07 Jun'13

  Businesses failing to manage personal devices at work

  Businesses are allowing employees to use personal devices at work but are failing to manage them effectively, survey reveals

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  Huawei in the UK: a comedy of process errors

  An ISC report has questioned UK critical infrastructure procurement processes, particularly about the risks of using Huawei equipment

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  UK infrastructure needs better security controls on suppliers, says ISC

  An Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report reveals weaknesses in the UK's approach to critical national infrastructure

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  Costs of NPfIT significantly greater than benefits, says Department of Health

  The defunct NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) realised £3.7bn of benefits but cost £7.3bn, says the Department of Health

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  Danish tunnel builder Femern opts for DataCore storage virtualisation

  Femern will use DataCore storage virtualisation in place of EqualLogic array, cutting disk costs by 75%

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  Warwickshire leads West Midlands BDUK deal

  BT has won another government contract to roll out broadband, winning the bid for Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  US agency collects Verizon phone data with secret court order

  The National Security Agency is collecting from Verizon the phone records of millions of US citizens under a court order

• June 06, 2013 06 Jun'13

  Microsoft partnership takes down 1,000 cybercrime botnets

  Microsoft has disrupted more than 1,000 botnets in a joint campaign with the financial services industry and the FBI

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  Most businesses hit by mobile security incident, study shows

  Almost 80% of businesses had a mobile security incident in the past year, in many cases incurring substantial costs, a study has shown

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  Human error causes most data breaches, Ponemon study finds

  Human errors and system problems caused two-thirds of data breaches in 2012, according to a study from Symantec and the Ponemon Institute

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  Backup and recovery challenges most small businesses, study shows

  Most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are experiencing difficulties with data backup and recovery, a study has shown

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  Turkish protesters make innovative use of technology

  Turkish anti-government protesters are making innovative use of technology to stay ahead of the authorities

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  Denise McDonagh takes CTO role at Home Office

  Former G-Cloud director Denise McDonagh is taking the role of chief technology officer (CTO) at the Home Office

• June 05, 2013 05 Jun'13

  UK authorities begin tackling pirate websites

  The City of London Police and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau have started contacting websites suspected of profiting by breaking copyright laws

• June 04, 2013 04 Jun'13

  Whitehall should use Twitter to engage public in open policy-making, say MPs

  Government should use Twitter for an ‘open policy’ approach, says the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC)

• June 04, 2013 04 Jun'13

  A malicious charger could hack Apple devices easily, claim researchers

  A modified phone charger or battery could be used to hack Apple devices, say researchers from Georgia Tech

• June 04, 2013 04 Jun'13

  France drops controversial anti-piracy penalty

  France has decided to end its controversial policy of cutting off suspected pirates from the internet

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Microsoft evolves disruption anti-cyber crime tactic

  Microsoft, like other major software suppliers, is increasingly using disruption as a key tactic to fight cyber crime

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Transparency, not security, is biggest cloud challenge, says Verizon

  Transparency is the biggest challenge to moving to cloud computing, not security, according to Verizon

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  G-Cloud moves to GDS

  The G-Cloud has become part of the remit of the Government Digital Service (GDS)

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Targeted cyber espionage on the increase, McAfee warns

  The first three months of 2013 saw continued increases in the number and complexity of targeted threats, according to McAfee’s latest report

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Universal Credit will cost taxpayers £12.8bn

  The government’s review of major projects revealed the flagship Universal Credit programme will cost nearly six times more than previously billed

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Care home operator manages Apple estate with Absolute

  Software firm offers the right MDM solutions for LNT Group to manage a fleet of iPhones without needing individual iTunes accounts.

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Google ordered to comply with FBI data demands

  A US judge has ordered Google to comply with FBI demands for customer data, despite ruling previously that such demands were unconstitutional

• June 03, 2013 03 Jun'13

  Apple to defend against e-book price fixing charges

  Apple is set to begin its defence against US government charges that it colluded with publishers to fix the prices of e-books

• May 31, 2013 31 May'13

  Cambridge Academies to save 70% in licensing cost with new datacentre strategy

  A datacentre upgrade and use of a unified communication and management system across all its schools will help the Trust yield savings

• May 31, 2013 31 May'13

  US military Plan X aims to make cyber war easy

  Top US military technologists have been working on a programme aimed at making cyber war relatively easy for the past year, it has emerged

• May 31, 2013 31 May'13

  Google sets seven-day deadline for zero-day disclosure

  Google has set third-party suppliers a seven-day deadline for disclosing vulnerabilities in software to help users protect themselves from attack

• May 31, 2013 31 May'13

  BT to drop Yahoo email after hacking complaints

  BT is to replace Yahoo Mail with its own email service for its six million broadband customers after complaints about hijacked accounts

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  Kroes pledges telecoms legislation for 2014

  The vice president of the European Commission responsible for the digital agenda wants an end to mobile roaming and a guarantee of net neutrality in legislation before the next European Parliament elections

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  London trusts adopt BT electronic health records

  BT and CSE Healthcare roll out RiO electronic patient record system to 62 community and mental health trusts in London and south England

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  Microsoft and trustworthy computing – not a paradox

  Behind the scenes, Microsoft’s TwC group does a lot of work across security, cyber crime, threat intelligence and malware protection

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  Case Study: US supermarket chain solves security challenge virtually

  A US supermarket chain has implemented an endpoint security system to secure legacy applications and to save additional development

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  Drupal resets passwords after hacker breach

  Open source content management platform Drupal has reset the passwords for almost one million accounts after hackers breached its systems

• May 30, 2013 30 May'13

  More than half UK citizens worried about nation-state cyber attacks

  A survey has revealed that 53% of UK citizens are concerned about other countries launching damaging cyber attacks against the UK

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  Attackers exploit Ruby on Rails flaw, despite warnings and patch

  Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability in the Ruby on Rails web application framework to hijack servers for botnets four months after a patch was released

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  BIS awards Thales five-year PSN contract

  Thales will provide secure network services to The Insolvency Service for its headquarters, regional offices and datacentres

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  NHS publishes £1.2bn GP IT framework

  The Department of Health has announced a £1.2bn framework for GP Systems of Choice, offering central funding of GP IT systems

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  CERN uses ITIL to rethink facilities management

  CERN, the particle physics laboratory, is using IT service management to support operations outside the IT function

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  Google may have to revise proposals to EU competition authorities yet again

  Google may have to revise its proposals yet again to allay European concerns about its business practices

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  EU investigates Apple’s iPhone sales strategy

  The European Commission’s competition division confirms it is looking into the distribution practices of Apple when it comes to its flagship smartphone

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  Stratfor hacker pleads guilty

  US hacktivist Jeremy Hammond pleads guilty to accessing computers of law enforcement agencies and government contractors illegally

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  China plans first digital war games

  China’s state media say the country’s military plans to hold its first digital war games

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  US anti-piracy group proposes locking infringing computers

  The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property has proposed pre-installing software on computers to identify copyright-violating activity

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  UK masters students to help build online security and trust

  The UK national Cyber Security Challenge and 15 UK universities are calling on masters students for ideas on improving online security and trust

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  Syrian hackers deface Sky Android apps

  Syrian hackers have defaced several of Sky’s Android apps, forcing the broadcaster to remove them temporarily from the Google Play store

• May 29, 2013 29 May'13

  Chinese hackers accessed US weapons designs, says Pentagon

  Hackers are feared to have accessed more than 20 designs for advanced US weapons systems, according to a Pentagon report

• May 24, 2013 24 May'13

  Government reveals failing projects

  Government has published a report detailing the status of 191 major projects worth £353bn, in which eight projects were red flagged