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IT for utilities and energy

• January 29, 2025 29 Jan'25

  Vallance rejects latest charge to reform UK hacking laws

  Science minister Patrick Vallance rejects proposed amendments to the Computer Misuse Act, arguing that they could create a loophole for cyber criminals to exploit

• January 28, 2025 28 Jan'25

  Concerns over Fujitsu billing application used at SSE Airtricity in Republic of Ireland

  Under-scrutiny IT services firm has escalated fears over problems with one of its applications, used at a Republic of Ireland energy firm, to its headquarters in Japan

• January 27, 2025 27 Jan'25

  Cyber incident that closed British Museum was inside job

  An IT incident that disrupted visitor access to the British Museum last week was the work of a disgruntled contractor who had been let go

• January 22, 2025 22 Jan'25

  Privacy professionals expect budget cuts, lack confidence

  Over 50% of privacy professionals in Europe expect to see less money earmarked for data security initiatives in 2025, and many don’t have faith their organisations are taking the issue seriously, according to an ISACA report

• January 22, 2025 22 Jan'25

  Funksec gang turned up ransomware heat in December

  The criminal ransomware fraternity was hard at work over the festive period, with attack volumes rising and a new threat actor emerging on the scene

• January 15, 2025 15 Jan'25

  Government, Nesta and ODI issue £600k smart data challenge to technologists

  Department for Business and Trade, Challenge Works and the Open Data Institute have issued a Smart Data Challenge to app developers and entrepreneurs with a total prize fund of £600,000

• January 15, 2025 15 Jan'25

  Biggest Patch Tuesday in years sees Microsoft address 159 vulnerabilities

  The largest Patch Tuesday of the 2020s so far brings fixes for more than 150 CVEs ranging widely in their scope and severity – including eight zero-day flaws

• January 13, 2025 13 Jan'25

  UK government plans to extend ransomware payment ban

  A ban on ransomware payments by UK government departments will be extended to cover organisations such as local councils, schools and the NHS should new government proposals move forward

• January 13, 2025 13 Jan'25

  CNI operators should ask these 12 questions of their OT suppliers

  The NCSC, CISA and others have set out 12 cyber security considerations CNI organisations and other users of operational technology should incorporate into their buying processes to force their suppliers to do better

• January 10, 2025 10 Jan'25

  Mandiant: Latest Ivanti vulns exploited by Chinese cyber spooks

  Threat actors are once again lining up to exploit vulnerabilities in the widely used Ivanti product suite, with an apparent link to Chinese espionage activity

• January 03, 2025 03 Jan'25

  US Treasury incident a clear warning on supply chain security in 2025

  A cyber incident at the US Department of the Treasury – blamed on a Chinese state actor – raises fresh warnings about supply chain risk after it was found to have originated via vulnerabilities in a remote tech support product

• December 19, 2024 19 Dec'24

  LockBit ransomware gang teases February 2025 return

  An individual associated with the LockBit ransomware gang has broken cover to tease details of a new phase of the cyber criminal operation's activity, which they claim is set to begin in February 2025

• December 19, 2024 19 Dec'24

  Latest attempt to override UK’s outdated hacking law stalls

  Amendments to the Data Bill that would have given the UK cyber industry a boost by updating restrictive elements of the Computer Misuse Act have failed to progress beyond a Lords committee

• December 18, 2024 18 Dec'24

  The Security Interviews: Martin Lee, Cisco Talos

  Threat intel expert and author Martin Lee, EMEA technical lead for security research at Cisco Talos, joins Computer Weekly to mark the 35th anniversary of the first ever ransomware attack

• December 18, 2024 18 Dec'24

  Top 10 cyber security stories of 2024

  Data breaches, data privacy and protection, and the thorny issue of open source security were all hot topics this year. Meanwhile, security companies frequently found themselves hitting the headlines, and not always for good reasons. Here are ...

• December 18, 2024 18 Dec'24

  Top 10 cyber crime stories of 2024

  From ransomware targeting the NHS to nation-state-backed intrusions, 2024 was another big year for cyber criminals and cyber spooks alike, but they didn't have it all their own way as the good guys fought back

• December 13, 2024 13 Dec'24

  Computer Misuse Act reform gains traction in Parliament

  An amendment to the proposed Data (Access and Use) Bill that will right a 35-year-old wrong and protect security professionals from criminalisation is to be debated at Westminster

• December 12, 2024 12 Dec'24

  Emerging Ymir ransomware heralds more coordinated threats in 2025

  A newly observed ransomware strain has the community talking about more collaboration, and blurred lines, between threat groups next year, according to NCC’s monthly cyber barometer

• December 10, 2024 10 Dec'24

  Dangerous CLFS and LDAP flaws stand out on Patch Tuesday

  Microsoft has fixed over 70 CVEs in its final Patch Tuesday update of the year, and defenders should prioritise a zero-day in the Common Log File System Driver, and another impactful flaw in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

• December 10, 2024 10 Dec'24

  iOS vuln leaves user data dangerously exposed

  Jamf threat researchers detail an exploit chain for a recently patched iOS vulnerability that enables a threat actor to steal sensitive data, warning that many organisations are still neglecting mobile updates

• 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 26, 2024 26 Nov'24

  Sellafield operator opens dedicated cyber centre

  The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has opened a cyber security centre spanning its activities across the nuclear sector

• 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

  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 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 21, 2024 21 Nov'24

  Fujitsu snubbed on private sector deal with Centrica due to Post Office scandal backlash

  Centrica board said to be concerned about contracting Fujitsu due to its involvement in the Post Office scandal

• 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 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 15, 2024 15 Nov'24

  Microsoft UAE power deal at centre of US plan for AI supremacy

  Microsoft pens artificial intelligence energy deal with United Arab Emirates oil giant ADNOC

• November 13, 2024 13 Nov'24

  China’s Volt Typhoon rebuilds botnet in wake of takedown

  Nine months after its malicious botnet comprising legacy routers was disrupted by the Americans, Chinese APT Volt Typhoon is rebuilding and presents as persistent a threat as ever

• 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 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 01, 2024 01 Nov'24

  CISA looks to global collaboration as fraught US election begins

  The US' CISA cyber agency has unveiled a two-year International Strategic Plan to advance collaboration and improve resilience against shared risks and threats

• October 29, 2024 29 Oct'24

  EMEA businesses siphoning budgets to hit NIS2 goals

  With NIS2 now in effect, European business leaders are having to divert budget from elsewhere to achieve compliance

• October 22, 2024 22 Oct'24

  Danish government reboots cyber security council amid AI expansion

  Denmark’s government relaunches digital security initiative to protect business sectors and society at large

• October 10, 2024 10 Oct'24

  How Recorded Future finds ransomware victims before they get hit

  Threat intel specialists at Recorded Future have shared details of newly developed techniques they are using to disrupt Rhysida ransomware attacks before the gang even has a chance to execute them

• October 09, 2024 09 Oct'24

  Five zero-days to be fixed on October Patch Tuesday

  Stand-out vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s latest Patch Tuesday drop include problems in Microsoft Management Console and the Windows MSHTML Platform

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  Secureworks: Ransomware takedowns didn’t put off cyber criminals

  The number of active cyber criminal ransomware gangs has surged by almost a third in the space of 12 months, according to the latest intelligence from Secureworks

• October 08, 2024 08 Oct'24

  UK’s cyber incident reporting law to move forward in 2025

  The UK government says that enforced cyber incident and ransomware reporting for critical sectors of the economy will help to build a better picture of the threat landscape and enable more proactive and preventative responses

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  NCSC celebrates eight years as Horne blows in

  Outgoing NCSC interim leader Felicity Oswald shares her thoughts on the body’s work over the past eight years as she hands over the reins to incoming CEO Richard Horne

• October 04, 2024 04 Oct'24

  Cups Linux printing bugs open door to DDoS attacks, says Akamai

  The Cups Linux printing vulnerabilities disclosed at the end of September would seem to have a nasty sting in their tail, according to researchers at Akamai

• October 03, 2024 03 Oct'24

  SOC teams falling out of love with threat detection tools

  Security operations centre practitioners are fed up of being flooded with pointless alerts and many no longer have much confidence in their threat detection tools, according to a report

• October 01, 2024 01 Oct'24

  Cyber teams say they can’t keep up with attack volumes

  Over 60% of European security pros say their teams are understaffed, and over 50% don’t have enough budget, according to data from ISACA

• September 24, 2024 24 Sep'24

  Unique malware sample volumes seen surging

  BlackBerry’s latest ‘Global threat intelligence’ report details a surge in unique malware samples as threat actors ramp up the pace of targeted attacks

• September 18, 2024 18 Sep'24

  Dreamforce 24: Salesforce taps Nvidia to power Agentforce

  At Dreamforce in San Francisco, Salesforce and Nvidia detail some of the tech that will power the software giant's newly launched Agentforce service