News

IT governance

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Merger of national policing systems over budget and behind schedule

  UK government effort to replace legacy IT systems suffers further delays, and will not be fully completed until 2025 at the earliest

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Securing UK’s critical national infrastructure is a 2021 priority

  Government outlines the UK’s strategic cyber security policies for the coming 12 months, with critical national infrastructure a clear priority

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  NHSX to launch data strategy for health and social care

  Government sets out plans to ‘bust bureaucracy’ in the NHS, including implementing a new data strategy, consulting on changes to data collection legislation, and making progress on shared care records

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Post Office accused of lying and being in contempt of Parliament in IT scandal

  Campaigning politician demands access to documents that could prove that the Post Office lied

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Nominet introduces new resources for cyber scam victims

  Domain name registrar is working with law enforcement to provide new information, guidance and resources for potential victims of online scams

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  Telcos could face huge fines under new security laws

  Government boasts of unprecedented powers to boost the security standards of the UK’s critical national infrastructure

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  Manchester United praised for swift response to cyber attack

  Manchester United’s systems were attacked last week, and the club has been praised for a swift and decisive response

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  MPs subjected to over 22 million malicious email attacks in 2020

  Members of Parliament are targeted by millions of spam and phishing emails every month, according to a Freedom of Information disclosure

• November 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  Pricing questions persist but Openreach overall observes Ofcom independence mandates

  UK communications regulator notes real progress made in implementing its requirements, but more is needed to be done to strengthen broadband provision division independence and engagement

• November 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  Security pros fear prosecution under outdated UK laws

  CyberUp, a group of campaigners who want to reform the Computer Misuse Act, finds 80% of security professionals are concerned that they may be prosecuted just for doing their jobs

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Data silos and IT complexity stifle business potential

  A study from 451 Research highlights the problems organisations face in managing data

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Security sector broadly backs Boris Johnson’s Cyber Force

  Security community says the presence of a robust cyber defence force alongside a robust physical one will be vital to the UK’s national security

• November 18, 2020 18 Nov'20

  2021 the year of commodity ransomware, says Sophos

  Sophos researchers anticipate a trickle-down effect in the cyber criminal underground

• November 18, 2020 18 Nov'20

  US cyber security chief fired for contradicting Trump

  CISA chief Chris Krebs ousted for doing his job fighting disinformation in an apparent purge of officials deemed disloyal to president Donald Trump

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  Kaspersky shuts down data-processing activities in Russia

  Cyber security provider’s data storage and processing activities for customers in Europe, the US and Canada, have now been fully relocated to Switzerland

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  HMRC warns over uptick in Self Assessment tax scams

  HMRC issues updated warnings as 2021 Self Assessment deadlines loom

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  Financial services data volumes heighten risk of insider breach

  Financial services organisations hold so much data that it is becoming virtually impossible to safeguard properly against data breaches caused by malicious or careless employees

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Privacy advocates call for European probe into Palantir

  Dutch group SOMI is trying to raise awareness of Palantir’s data privacy practices and how it works with European government agencies

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Human error blamed in Welsh Covid-19 patient data leak

  Public Health Wales accepts recommendations of independent probe into data breach that saw PII on 18,105 coronavirus patients leaked

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Dutch IT award recognises importance of research in the wild

  Promoter of human-centric scientific research techniques claims the prestigious 2020 Netherlands Prize for ICT Research

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Humanitarian data collection practices put migrants at risk

  United Nations report on smart borders warns that data collection about migrants and refugees by humanitarian organisations risks excluding them from essential basic services like access to food

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  Financial Stability Board says it’s time to talk about IT outsourcing risks

  International organisation that monitors the finance sector asks for the industry to discuss the risks that IT outsourcing brings to the sector

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Tim Berners-Lee startup releases decentralisation tech to enterprises

  Roll-out of Inrupt’s decentralised privacy technology to four large organisations is helping the startup to develop explicit use cases, which it hopes will prove the tech and lead to faster adoption

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  EU aid funds used to train ‘unaccountable intelligence agencies’ in high-tech surveillance

  Hundreds of documents obtained by campaign group Privacy International show how the EU is supporting surveillance programmes in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Intel and AMD processors affected by another side-channel exploit

  Two years after Spectre and Meltdown, the x86 processor faces another side-channel exploit – only this time, it is based on sensing temperature

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Border technologies largely fail to respect human rights

  AI-powered border technologies used to ‘manage’ migration frequently make the process more arbitrary, discriminatory and unjust, says human rights group

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Leaky AWS S3 bucket once again at centre of data breach

  Prestige Software exposed millions of records after failing to pay attention to the security of its cloud instances

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Zoom rapped over historic security practices

  The US Federal Trade Commission rules that Zoom’s practices undermined the security of its users

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Better data sharing needed to help children during pandemic

  Closing gaps in data infrastructure will help the education sector respond better to children’s needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, says Open Data Institute

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  IT Priorities 2020: After Covid-19, security goes back to basics

  This year’s transition to remote working highlighted big gaps in the fundamentals of security, as updated TechTarget/Computer Weekly data reveals

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  MPs unconvinced NHS has learned lessons from failed IT programmes

  None of the components needed to deliver NHS digital ambitions are in place, says Public Accounts Committee, as MPs call for the Department of Health and Social care to set ‘realistic targets’

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  ICO sued over ‘failure’ to address ad industry practices

  Privacy campaigner the Open Rights Group claims the advertising technology industry is systematically breaching the GDPR, and the ICO is doing nothing about it

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  Finger pointed at Fujitsu as Post Office Horizon system crashes nationally

  Post Office branches offline during busy business hours after suffering an IT error that the Post Office said related to IT from supplier Fujitsu

• November 04, 2020 04 Nov'20

  EU to introduce data-sharing measures with US in weeks

  The European Commission is to issue updated standard contractual clauses (SCCs) that will allow organisations in the EU to exchange data with the US, but they may arrive too late to incorporate into UK law

• November 02, 2020 02 Nov'20

  NHS weathers cyber crime storm during pandemic, says NCSC

  The NCSC dealt with over 700 incidents in the 12 months to August 2020, with over 200 specifically related to Covid-19, and the NHS a critical area of focus

• November 02, 2020 02 Nov'20

  Maze ransomware shuts down with bizarre announcement

  The operators of Maze announce they are shutting down, and claim their crime spree was merely intended to demonstrate lax security at their targets

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  Accidental heroes: How one scaleup pivoted to cyber

  Simeon Quarrie designed his business using virtual reality and interactivity as a tool to tell stories that effect cultural change in enterprise environments – then a cyber criminal emptied his bank account

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  CISOs more confident in identity practice after pandemic shock

  Identity practice and management has become a critical element of cyber security strategies to support remote workers

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  ICO slashes Marriott breach fine to £18.4m

  Reduced fine reflects both improvements made to hotel group’s cyber security and impact of coronavirus on the travel and hospitality sector

• October 29, 2020 29 Oct'20

  Victims contest technology firms’ attempt to dismiss cobalt mining deaths case

  Technology companies say they cannot be held responsible for the deaths of children mining for the cobalt used in their products

• October 29, 2020 29 Oct'20

  Zero-trust investment seen accelerating through pandemic

  New analyst report details some of the main indicators for success in zero-trust implementation

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Trump supporters targeted by cryptocurrency scammers

  The successful breach of Donald Trump’s official website shows up lax security on his campaign team and is yet another timely warning that nobody is immune to cyber crime

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Finnish therapy centre accused of covering up cyber attack

  Private therapy practice Vastaamo faces questions over its security and business practices in the months leading up to one of the biggest data breaches in Finland’s history

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Privacy and online safety are focus of new UKRI research funding

  Online safety research centre of excellence will look into technology to boost privacy and tackle disinformation, fake news, conspiracies and other online harms

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  ICO slams Experian over ‘invisible’ data processing

  Data processing practices used by Experian broke data protection law, says Information Commissioner’s Office

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  Calls for clarity over Amazon insider breach

  Security experts call for more clarity from Amazon over an apparent leak of customer data

• October 26, 2020 26 Oct'20

  Highly unusual hacking attack directly threatens therapy patients

  A hacker has directly contacted therapy patients to say their highly personal therapy notes will be put on the internet unless they pay the ransom

• October 23, 2020 23 Oct'20

  Digital public services fail UK citizens on multiple fronts

  Commission for Smart Government publishes paper on obstacles facing the UK’s digital government, setting out principles for digital government initiatives to follow

• October 22, 2020 22 Oct'20

  Protecting remote workers an opportunity to do security better

  Securing the fully remote workforce has been a challenge for IT teams, but it presents an opportunity to commit to a higher standard of cyber security, according to a Cisco report

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  NSA’s top CVE list a timely reminder to patch

  Many of the CVEs detailed on the NSA’s top 25 chart are golden oldies

• October 21, 2020 21 Oct'20

  Charities warned over ‘Robin Hood’ cyber criminals

  Accepting donations from cyber criminal groups could be deemed as profiting from crime, money laundering or handling stolen goods – so don’t do it

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Resilient Trickbot down but not yet knocked out

  Global, Microsoft-led effort to disrupt the Trickbot botnet has seen some success, but new command and control servers continue to pop up

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Police given access to self-isolation data

  NHS Test and Trace self-isolation data will be made available to police after new guidance changes data-sharing rules

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  BA breach penalty sets new GDPR precedents

  The 90% reduction in the fine levied on BA over a 2018 data breach has legal experts talking about the ramifications for the future of data protection

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Six Russians charged over NotPetya and other attacks

  Six members of the APT group known as Sandworm have been charged in the US over a series of attacks including the destructive NotPetya incident

• October 16, 2020 16 Oct'20

  BA argues ICO data breach fine down to £20m

  Information Commissioner’s Office levies fine of £20m on British Airways for failing to protect the personal data of hundreds of thousands of passengers – a vast reduction on the initial £183m penalty

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Cloud data protection keeps the Crick’s medical research Covid-secure

  Cloud data management services from Rubrik gave the Francis Crick Institute a data protection edge and have helped keep its vital work going through the pandemic

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  UK regulators lack the skills and expertise to cope with increasing use of algorithms

  MPs told that multiple regulators will be needed to govern the ever-growing use of algorithmic systems in all areas of the economy and public sector

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Hackney services still offline in ongoing cyber attack

  Services remain disrupted two days after council was hit by a serious incident, as residents are warned to be on their guard

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  How Tokopedia is streamlining incident management

  Indonesian e-commerce giant Tokopedia has improved incident management and developer productivity using a cloud-based incident management tool

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Public sector security failings leave UK at risk, says think tank

  Reform report urges adoption of new policies in the next version of the UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  US Elections: Malicious internet domains spike as campaigns heat up

  Internet domains related to the US presidential election are 56% more likely to be malicious than regular ones

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Public data should not be held by US tech giants

  One-off evidence sessions to follow up on the recommendations of the House of Lords AI Committee revisit the data and ethics debate

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Fintech ‘unicorn’ Klarna probed over data misuse

  Online bank blames misuse of user data on human error as Information Commissioner’s Office weighs in

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Microsoft fixes 87 bugs in October 2020 Patch Tuesday

  Smaller October Patch Tuesday update includes fixes for critical bugs in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Trickbot forced offline in major cyber security victory

  Coalition led by Microsoft obtained a court order enabling them to take down the infamous Trickbot botnet’s back-end server infrastructure

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Five Eyes spy group again demands access to private messages

  Spooks are once again calling for the tech industry to break end-to-end encryption in messaging platforms

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Software AG caught in double extortion ransomware hit

  Data stolen from prominent German software company by Clop ransomware gang appears on the dark web

• October 09, 2020 09 Oct'20

  Facebook critics’ webpage removed over false phishing allegations

  Real Facebook Oversight Board alleges Facebook is trying to censor it for speaking out against the social media company’s behaviour

• October 09, 2020 09 Oct'20

  Major tech companies respond to lawsuit over mining deaths

  Multinational technology companies accused of knowingly benefiting from human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo have responded to a lawsuit seeking to hold them accountable for the deaths of Congolese children in their cobalt supply ...

• October 09, 2020 09 Oct'20

  Magecart strikes website of school payments service Wisepay

  Magecart credit card skimmer harvested financial data of users of Wisepay’s platform over a two-day period

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  NCSC relaunches SME security guide with home working focus

  The NCSC is issuing an updated version of its guide to security for SMEs, reflecting the long-lasting changes to the world of work seen in 2020

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Crown Prosecution Service suffers 1,600 data breaches in 12 months

  CPS sees a spike in data security incidents, many of them serious enough to be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Threat of GDPR fines increasingly driving security buying decisions

  Scaring the people who hold the purse strings may be the best option for CISOs who need a little extra budget

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  US lawmakers release big tech antitrust report

  House Democrats have published a report on the monopoly power wielded by big tech companies and how to restore competition in digital markets

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  Department for Education failed to protect data on millions of children, says ICO

  The Department for Education’s National Pupil Database, which contains millions of items of data on the UK’s schoolchildren, was found to be non-compliant with data protection regulations across the board

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  UK accounts for 45% of Europe’s card fraud as criminals target online transactions

  Payment card fraudsters steal €1.5bn, with card-not-present attacks accounting for three-quarters of this sum

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  ICO wraps up Cambridge Analytica investigation

  Information Commissioner’s Office concludes its investigation into Cambridge Analytica, saying no additional evidence has come to light that would change its previous assessments

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  EU’s top court questions legality of UK phone and internet data surveillance

  European Court of Justice rules that the UK and EU member states must comply with EU privacy laws when harvesting people’s sensitive communications data from telecoms and internet companies

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  Government deaf to loud calls for statutory public inquiry into Post Office scandal

  MPs are demanding the government holds a full statutory public inquiry into the Post Office IT scandal

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  Coronavirus raises the software audit stakes

  IT asset managers say they are receiving more requests from software publishers to check for licence discrepancies

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  Ransomware attacks go through the roof

  The volume of ransomware attacks has jumped 50% in the past three months, according to data produced at Check Point

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  CISOs struggle to keep up with MITRE ATT&CK framework

  Despite its proven benefits for security, the MITRE ATT&CK framework is proving difficult for many, according to a joint study from McAfee and UC Berkeley

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  John McAfee arrested over cryptocurrency fraud

  Erratic tech baron allegedly promoted initial coin offerings without disclosing he was being paid to do so

• October 05, 2020 05 Oct'20

  Employees overwhelmingly hostile to workplace monitoring tech

  The use of workplace surveillance technologies to monitor and track staff working from home has increased hugely since the start of the pandemic, but most workers say it makes them feel uncomfortable

• October 05, 2020 05 Oct'20

  FBI seized ‘legally privileged’ material from Ecuador Embassy, claims Julian Assange’s lawyer

  The US struck a secret deal with Ecuador to seize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s property from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London days before his arrest. The haul included legally privileged documents, says his solicitor

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Honesty is the best policy: Forging a security culture in the NHS

  Clinician and technologist Sam Shah helped set up NHSX in 2019. Now he’s helping advance digital transformation in healthcare from the outside, and a big part of that is addressing security in the sector

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Future UK-EU data sharing put at risk by Brexit legislation

  When the Brexit transition period ends, UK ministers will have the power to forge new data-sharing arrangements that risk undermining the viability of future data transfers with the European Union

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Security pros face sanctions if they help ransomware victims pay

  New advisory from the US government warns cyber insurance and incident response specialists that they could be skating on thin ice if they help ransomware victims pay their attackers off

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Justice for subpostmasters as wrongful criminal convictions are set to be quashed

  The Post Office has chosen not to contest 44 out of 47 appeals, meaning most are likely to have their names cleared, but others still face a Court of Appeal battle for justice

• October 01, 2020 01 Oct'20

  Trust in government technology is key to adoption

  Panellists at GovTech Summit 2020 speak about the need to build trust in government digital services, as the pandemic has created room for increased use of technology in the public sector

• October 01, 2020 01 Oct'20

  Blackbaud admits hackers stole banking details, passwords

  Software firm paid off a ransomware gang, believed its hackers when they said they had destroyed the data, and has now discovered the cyber criminals accessed even more sensitive information than it thought

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  Threat actors becoming vastly more sophisticated

  Malicious actors have been busily honing their craft and cyber security incidents are up across the board as a result, according to a Microsoft report

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  NatWest offers online banking customers free security services

  Bank responds to a surge in cyber crime targeting users of online banking services

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  UK and US marked down on responsible AI

  The UK and US have been rated as leaders in government use of artificial intelligence, but the Nordics and Baltics attained the highest scores for responsible AI

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Sustrans opens door to NCSC cyber certification via the cloud

  Sustainable transport charity turned to Qualys to help it attain needed certifications to bid for government work

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Government updates data ethics framework

  The new data ethics framework was created to better reflect how projects are run in practice after finding there was “little awareness” of the previous framework across the public sector

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  TikTok ban stayed after last-minute court case

  TikTok’s lawyers have staved off an imminent ban for the time being, after successfully arguing that it infringed rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Security now main driving force behind digital transformation

  Organisations are urgently remodelling their core technology stack in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this is pushing security to the top of the agenda

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Airbnb hosts’ account data exposed in internal leak

  Data exposure within Airbnb’s system was the result of a technical issue but was swiftly fixed, says the firm