News

IT security

• March 21, 2023 21 Mar'23

  Ransomware gangs harass victims to ‘bypass’ backups

  Analysis reveals how cyber criminal gangs are turning to extensive, targeted harassment campaigns to force victims to pay up, even if their backups are in good order

• March 20, 2023 20 Mar'23

  NCSC launches cyber check-up tools for SMEs

  The NCSC has launched two new security services aimed at SMEs that lack the resources to address cyber issues, and may underestimate their vulnerability to attack

• March 20, 2023 20 Mar'23

  NatWest announces ID service for its customers

  The identities of NatWest customers engaging with businesses online can be confirmed by the bank's ID service in seconds

• March 20, 2023 20 Mar'23

  BBC cracks down on TikTok after review

  The BBC is asking staff not to install TikTok on corporate-owned devices without a justified business purpose, although its use will still be allowed to share media content with its audiences

• March 17, 2023 17 Mar'23

  UK TikTok ban gives us all cause to consider social media security

  The UK government’s ban on TikTok should give all organisations cause to look into what information social media platforms are collecting on us, and what they are using it for

• March 17, 2023 17 Mar'23

  UK government to create code of practice for generative AI firms

  The code will look to strike a balance between copyright holders and generative AI firms so that both parties can benefit from the use of copyrighted material in training data

• March 16, 2023 16 Mar'23

  BEC attacks doubled in 2022, outstripping ransomware

  Massive growth in the volume of Business Email Compromise or BEC attacks was linked to a surge in successful phishing campaigns, according to data from Secureworks

• March 16, 2023 16 Mar'23

  TikTok banned on UK government devices

  The UK government has followed in the footsteps of its US and European counterparts and banned the use of Chinese social media app TikTok on official devices

• March 16, 2023 16 Mar'23

  Rubrik customer, partner data exposed in possible Clop attack

  Rubrik was supposedly compromised by the Clop ransomware gang via a zero-day vulnerability in a managed file transfer software package it uses

• March 16, 2023 16 Mar'23

  Mandiant: Dangerous MS Outlook zero-day widely used against Ukraine

  A zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook that was fixed in the March Patch Tuesday update has likely been actively exploited by Russian actors for a year or more, and its use will now spread rapidly

• March 15, 2023 15 Mar'23

  Chinese Silkloader cyber attack tool falls into Russian hands

  A loader tool used by Chinese cyber criminals seems to have been enthusiastically taken up in recent weeks by Russian ransomware operators

• March 15, 2023 15 Mar'23

  Microsoft patches Outlook zero-day for March Patch Tuesday

  A highly dangerous privilege escalation bug in Outlook is among 80 different vulnerabilities patched in Microsoft’s March Patch Tuesday update

• March 14, 2023 14 Mar'23

  NatWest introduces limits on crypto trading to prevent fraud

  UK bank says its retail customers will benefit from daily and monthly limits on the amount they can pay into cryptocurrency exchanges

• March 14, 2023 14 Mar'23

  NCSC warns over AI language models but rejects cyber alarmism

  The UK's NCSC has issued advice for those using the technology underpinning AI tools such as ChatGPT, but says some of the security doomsday scenarios being proposed right now are not necessarily realistic

• March 14, 2023 14 Mar'23

  AI interview: Elke Schwarz, professor of political theory

  Elke Schwarz speaks with Computer Weekly about the ethics of military artificial intelligence and the dangers of allowing governments and corporations to push forward without oversight or scrutiny

• March 13, 2023 13 Mar'23

  MI5 to oversee new National Protective Security Authority

  The new National Protective Security Authority will address various national security threats including state-sponsored cyber espionage against UK targets

• March 13, 2023 13 Mar'23

  HSBC buys Silicon Valley Bank UK arm for £1 following collapse

  UK tech ecosystem welcomes government intervention to facilitate HSBC purchase after the collapse of SVB left many UK startups unable to access their deposits

• March 10, 2023 10 Mar'23

  Technology minister Michelle Donelan defends data reforms

  Secretary of state Michelle Donelan has defended the government’s new data reforms as providing certainty for businesses while simultaneously retaining high standards of data protection, but industry figures are having mixed reactions

• March 08, 2023 08 Mar'23

  UK government introduces revised data reform bill to Parliament

  Designed in close collaboration with technology businesses, the UK government is re-introducing an updated version of its Data Protection and Digital Information Bill to Parliament, which civil society groups say upends key safeguards

• March 08, 2023 08 Mar'23

  How ForgeRock is tackling identity management

  ForgeRock CEO Fran Rosch has set the identity and access management software supplier on a path to deliver a frictionless identity experience without compromising security or privacy

• March 07, 2023 07 Mar'23

  Nine in 10 enterprises fell victim to successful phishing in 2022

  Egress annual email security risk report breaks down impacts of email-based phishing attacks and data loss, and the effect these can have on organisations in terms of staff retention and morale

• March 07, 2023 07 Mar'23

  Dutch hospitals underestimate impact of cyber attack

  IT failures in acute care organisations in the Netherlands have increased considerably since 2010, affecting patient care and stressing the need to improve IT security in hospitals

• March 07, 2023 07 Mar'23

  Taking back control: Could a distributed model breed a better AI?

  AI tools such as ChatGPT are trained on datasets scraped from the web, but you don’t have much say if your data is used. Technologist Bruce Schneier says it’s time to give control of AI training data back to the people

• March 07, 2023 07 Mar'23

  APAC IT leaders bullish on tech spending

  Over half of respondents in this year’s IT Priorities study have bigger IT budgets as they continue to make strategic investments in cyber security, cloud and automation, among other areas

• March 03, 2023 03 Mar'23

  White House unveils National Cybersecurity Strategy

  The strategy will focus on ensuring closer collaboration on cyber security between government and industry, while giving software and other tech companies a bigger role in combatting threats due to their resources and expertise

• March 02, 2023 02 Mar'23

  AI interview: Michael Osborne, professor of machine learning

  Artificial intelligence researcher speaks with Computer Weekly about the implications of a market-driven AI arms race and the overwhelming dominance of the private sector over the technology

• March 02, 2023 02 Mar'23

  Uber introduces dynamic pricing algorithm in London

  The dynamic pricing algorithm will allow Uber to set variable pay and pricing levels, but drivers are concerned about how their personal data will be used and the impact the algorithm will have on their livelihoods

• March 02, 2023 02 Mar'23

  WH Smith staff data accessed in cyber attack

  The retailer has said that customer data has not been affected by the incident as it is held in different systems, and that investigations into the attack are ongoing

• March 02, 2023 02 Mar'23

  Salt Labs identifies OAuth security flaw within Booking.com

  Security flaw in Booking.com OAuth implementation could be used to launch account takeovers, but researchers discovered and flagged the issue before it could be exploited in the wild

• March 01, 2023 01 Mar'23

  Data breaches in Australia on the rise, says OAIC

  Cyber security incidents were the cause of most data breaches, which rose by 26% in the second half of 2022, according to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

• February 28, 2023 28 Feb'23

  LastPass attack saw employee’s home computer hacked

  The ongoing investigation into a series of linked security incidents at LastPass has found that the attacker was successfully able to compromise a developer’s home PC using a vulnerability in a media software package

• February 27, 2023 27 Feb'23

  Advanced digital resiliency can save organisations millions

  Businesses that build out their digital resiliency are not only more secure, they also have more opportunities to innovate with IT

• February 27, 2023 27 Feb'23

  Scotland launches data strategy for health and social care

  The five-year strategy aims to make it easier for people to access their own health and social care data, improve data flows between organisations, and transform the way data is used to enhance services

• February 27, 2023 27 Feb'23

  How Dell is future-proofing its business

  Dell Technologies is building a more resilient supply chain, investing in growth areas like edge and multicloud, and responding to shifts in consumption models to position itself for long-term growth

• February 24, 2023 24 Feb'23

  UK police have ‘culture of retention’ around biometric data

  A culture of retention around biometric data in UK policing is damaging public trust, says UK biometrics commissioner, who is calling for clear regulation to govern police use of biometric technologies

• February 24, 2023 24 Feb'23

  Royal Mail stands firm as LockBit leaks data and renews ransom demand

  The LockBit ransomware gang has made good on its threat to leak data exfiltrated from Royal Mail’s systems, but the postal service is not entertaining the possibility of giving in

• February 23, 2023 23 Feb'23

  WithSecure proposes ‘undo’ button for ransomware

  WithSecure’s Activity Monitor technology supposedly overcomes the shortcomings of sandbox test environments, and may be able to stop ransomware attacks from ever happening

• February 23, 2023 23 Feb'23

  ANZ CIOs flag priorities amid inflation concerns

  CIOs in Australia and New Zealand are concerned about inflation and plan to adjust their technology priorities to optimise resources and combat cyber threats

• February 23, 2023 23 Feb'23

  How APAC organisations can harness the power of IoT

  In a panel discussion moderated by Computer Weekly, industry experts from across Asia-Pacific discussed the use cases, challenges and future developments in the internet of things

• February 22, 2023 22 Feb'23

  UK forces lead live-fire cyber war exercise

  The seven-day Defence Cyber Marvel 2 exercise put cyber responders from 11 countries through their paces

• February 22, 2023 22 Feb'23

  Researchers find new bug ‘class’ in Apple devices

  A group of vulnerabilities in Apple products that stem from the ForcedEntry exploit used by spyware firm NSO constitutes a whole new class of bug, say researchers at Trellix

• February 22, 2023 22 Feb'23

  Dutch cyber security professionals experience stress akin to soldiers in war zone, claims expert

  Cyber attacks are taking a heavy toll on Dutch IT professionals, with over a third reporting that their mental health suffers as a result

• February 22, 2023 22 Feb'23

  Half of cyber leaders to switch jobs by 2025, citing stress

  A substantial number of cyber security leaders are plotting their great escape, saying the industry is leaving them too stressed to go on, according to a study

• February 22, 2023 22 Feb'23

  Institute for Government cautions government to draw right lessons from pandemic

  The Institute for Government has published a policy document warning government not to draw wrong lessons from data sharing during pandemic

• February 21, 2023 21 Feb'23

  Royal Mail resumes full export service after cyber attack

  Royal Mail resumes the last of its international services as it recovers from a ransomware attack, while the Post Office offers postmasters compensation for their lost business

• February 21, 2023 21 Feb'23

  US government Strike Force aims to prevent adversaries from accessing disruptive tech

  The US Strike Force law enforcement initiative will target rogue nation-states that pose a national security threat

• February 20, 2023 20 Feb'23

  Singapore organisations struggle to operationalise threat intelligence

  Organisations in the city-state were satisfied with the quality of their threat intelligence, but they struggled to operationalise the information due to talent shortages and other challenges

• February 20, 2023 20 Feb'23

  Twitter 2FA changes bring more risks than benefits

  Twitter’s approach to nudging users away from insecure SMS-based 2FA is being questioned over its logic

• February 20, 2023 20 Feb'23

  Why CIOs need to revisit desktop virtualisation

  Cloud computing is the next revolution in infrastructure, but desktop IT is still very much on-premise

• February 16, 2023 16 Feb'23

  Mock crime prediction tool profiles MEPs as potential criminals

  Developed by Fair Trials, the example crime prediction tool uses the same information as police systems to assess the likelihood of someone committing a crime in the future