News

IT security

• December 18, 2020 18 Dec'20

  Utility supplier People’s Energy has entire customer list stolen

  All 270,000 customers of People’s Energy, a renewable energy startup, have had their details compromised in a major data breach incident

• December 18, 2020 18 Dec'20

  SolarWinds cyber attack is ‘grave risk’ to global security

  More victims of the SolarWinds Orion Sunburst cyber attack are being identified as the massive scale of the Russia-linked cyber espionage campaign becomes more clear

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  Dodgy browser extensions put social media users at risk

  More than three million users of third-party browser extensions for Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo and others have been infected with malware, according to Avast

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  EU security strategy a ‘step up’ on cyber leadership, says Brussels

  The EU’s new cyber security strategy forms a key component of Shaping Europe’s Digital Future, the Recovery Plan for Europe, and the EU Security Union Strategy

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  NHS Scotland taps Check Point to secure Covid-19 data

  NHS National Services Scotland is working with security firm Check Point to safeguard its sensitive data in the cloud and support its work on the coronavirus

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  FireEye and partners release SolarWinds kill-switch

  A so-called kill-switch for the dangerous SolarWinds Sunburst attack should allay some user fears, but is not a full fix for the issue

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  UK police unlawfully processing over a million people’s data on Microsoft 365

  The roll-out of Microsoft 365 to dozens of UK police forces may be unlawful, because many have failed to conduct data protection checks before deployment and hold no information on their contracts

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  Danske Bank fights money laundering with AI

  Danske Bank is using artificial intelligence to help it prevent a repeat of the huge money laundering scandal that hit one of its operations in Estonia

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  AWS brings disaster recovery programme to Australia

  Project Resilience will offer up to $5,000 worth of credits to public sector and community organisations to offset the cost of storing data on Amazon Web Services

• December 16, 2020 16 Dec'20

  Lancashire police integrate body-worn video into digital policing app

  Body-worn video integration will transform Lancashire police’s time-consuming and manual procedures into an efficient digital workflow, but claims that BMV will increase transparency and accountability are not backed by the evidence

• December 15, 2020 15 Dec'20

  SolarWinds cyber attack: How worried should I be, and what do I do now?

  Security teams across the world are on high alert as more details emerge of the widespread SolarWinds ‘Sunburst’ attack. What do defenders need to do next?

• December 15, 2020 15 Dec'20

  Cyber crime victims in the Netherlands not reporting offences

  Dutch victims of online crime rarely report it to the police and when they do, they are often dissatisfied

• December 14, 2020 14 Dec'20

  FireEye identifies flaw in networking monitoring software as US agencies attacked

  Cyber security company says investigations have revealed security breach occurred because of a flaw in a network monitoring software

• December 13, 2020 13 Dec'20

  Singapore trials beacons to bolster police operations

  Police beacons equipped with video cameras, sirens, floodlights and speakers are being deployed at two parks to improve public safety in a year-long trial

• December 11, 2020 11 Dec'20

  The week in ransomware: Foxconn and Randstad are high-profile victims

  Foxconn and Randstad are laid low by cyber criminals, while Sophos spills on Egregor, and prognosticators turn to their crystal balls to divine how ransomware will develop in the next 12 months

• December 11, 2020 11 Dec'20

  Disputed PostgreSQL bug exploited in cryptomining botnet

  PGMiner cryptomining botnet remained unnoticed by exploiting a disputed CVE in PostgreSQL

• December 11, 2020 11 Dec'20

  Surge in Covid-19 vaccine phishing scams reported

  Check Point and KnowBe4 share details of a growing number of phishing campaigns using the prospect of a Covid-19 vaccine as a lure

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  French regulators fine Google and Amazon over cookie policies

  Google and Amazon rapped over their use of advertising cookies by the French data protection authorities

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  Cyber Helpline awarded lottery funding to support victims

  The Cyber Helpline, a UK charity that provides emergency support to victims of cyber crime and online stalking, is to receive funding from the National Lottery

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  After critical year, Vodafone trains security sights on CNI market

  Vodafone’s security head Steve Knibbs explains how he plans to bring the lessons of a transformative few years in cyber security to bear on new markets

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  Data on Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine stolen in cyber attack

  The European Medicines Agency has launched a full investigation into an apparent security incident that has seen documents on the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine stolen

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  Alan Turing Institute appoints global advisory board to aid digital identity schemes project

  The Alan Turing Institute announces an international advisory board for a project investigating digital identity schemes, with a view to building the technology and organisational infrastructure to sustain them as trustworthy

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  Amnesia:33 IoT flaws dangerous and patches unlikely, say experts

  The disclosure of multiple flaws by Forescout has raised big questions for the developers of connected products, and for their users

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  Patch Tuesday: Microsoft presents just 58 CVEs for Christmas

  The final Patch Tuesday of 2020 contains 58 fixes, a minnow compared to some recent drops, but many are still of high importance

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  FireEye’s ethical hacking tools stolen in state-backed attack

  Hacking tools used to conduct red team penetration testing were stolen in the state-backed attack on security firm FireEye

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  There’s no going back to pre-pandemic security approaches

  The cyber security world will probably never return to its pre-pandemic state, and different approaches to security will come to the fore in 2021

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  Top IT predictions in APAC in 2021

  The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be a cradle for technology innovation in the new year, whether it is 5G services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing or cyber security

• December 08, 2020 08 Dec'20

  Multiple D-Link routers found vulnerable to attack

  Digital Defense discloses a remotely exploitable root command injection flaw in a number of D-Link wireless router devices

• December 08, 2020 08 Dec'20

  Russian state actors exploiting VMware bug to hijack data, users warned

  Russian APT groups are actively exploiting a vulnerability in VMware products to access protected data, according to latest warnings

• December 07, 2020 07 Dec'20

  Met Police failed to clear backlog of subject access requests

  Metropolitan Police failed to comply fully with an enforcement notice issued by the Information Commissioner, and despite hundreds of overdue subject access requests the regulator did not take further action

• December 07, 2020 07 Dec'20

  HMRC referred 11 data security incidents to ICO in 2019-20

  HM Revenue & Customs shares details of a number of data security incidents that occurred during the 2019-20 financial year in its annual report

• December 07, 2020 07 Dec'20

  Grindr and others patch critical Android bug

  Fixes for CVE-2020-8913 deployed as app developers shore up their defences against a disclosed Google Play vulnerability

• December 07, 2020 07 Dec'20

  Singapore government to boost blockchain adoption

  Singapore government unveils S$12m programme to promote development and adoption of blockchain applications beyond financial services

• December 07, 2020 07 Dec'20

  A trillion dollars lost to cyber crime every year

  Data collated by McAfee and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies highlights the growing impact of cyber crime

• December 06, 2020 06 Dec'20

  China lags US in computer vision

  China trails the US in the field of computer vision despite making inroads in computing and research, new report finds

• December 04, 2020 04 Dec'20

  Opportunistic Egregor ransomware is an emerging and active threat

  Researchers at Recorded Future’s Insikt Group highlight links between the emerging Egregor ransomware and other strains, and offer guidance on defending against it

• December 04, 2020 04 Dec'20

  Avast and Borsetta to support Intel’s AI security project

  Security firm Avast and AI security specialist Borsetta have signed up to support an Intel-led artificial intelligence security research project

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Cyber Aware campaign to help safeguard Christmas shoppers

  New government campaign sets out to raise awareness of online shopping fraud in the run-up to Christmas

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Covid-19 vaccine supply chain attacked by unknown nation state

  An unknown nation state actor is attempting to disrupt the supply of coronavirus vaccines

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Lax Android app developers putting millions of users at risk

  Eight months after Google patched a critical vulnerability, developers have failed to update their apps, putting millions of users of apps such as dating services Bumble and Grindr at risk

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Dangerous Trickbot evolves to target UEFI/BIOS firmware

  Dubbed Trickboot by researchers, Trickbot’s new features enable malicious actors to read, write or even erase UEFI/BIOS firmware

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Re:Invent 2020: AWS CEO Andy Jassy on redefining hybrid cloud

  Amazon Web Services’ Re:Invent user conference has moved online this year, with the firm’s CEO using the opening keynote to explain how AWS’s take on hybrid cloud has changed over time

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Covid-19: Cyber criminals will target vaccine programmes

  Interpol issues a global alert to law enforcement as the UK becomes one of the first countries to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Double extortion ransomware will be a big theme in 2021

  Defenders will see heightened levels of cyber crime next year as criminals pivot their attacks from data encryption to exfiltration

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Singapore government remains ‘juicy target’ for cyber attackers

  The government is baking security into the design and implementation of its IT systems and looking to increase bug bounties to fend off cyber threats

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  DHL, Amazon and FedEx are most phished delivery services

  DHL has emerged as the most imitated delivery brand in Europe, accounting for 77% of the total volume of phishing emails received in November 2020

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  22,000 malicious .uk domains suspended in past year

  Nominet has suspended just over 22,000 domains in the 12 months to 31 October 2020, continuing a downward trend, and with less impact from Covid-19 than might be expected

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  Government covers its ears as complaint by victims of Post Office abuse heads to ombudsman

  Government denies responsibility for the abuse inflicted on subpostmasters by the Post Office over faulty IT system

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  What it takes for APAC firms to ride out the pandemic

  Whether businesses will recover from the Covid-19 pandemic will depend on how they leverage technology to innovate, create new business models and build digital trust

• November 30, 2020 30 Nov'20

  MI5 accused of withholding surveillance compliance failures from cabinet minister

  MI5 withheld high-risk concerns about its ability to comply with legislation from the home secretary when it submitted applications for surveillance warrants, NGOs Privacy International and Liberty claimed last week

• November 30, 2020 30 Nov'20

  IT Priorities: APAC enterprises readying recovery budget

  Enterprises in Asia-Pacific are investing in cloud and other key technologies to not only survive but thrive in the post-pandemic world

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  UK government ramps up efforts to regulate tech giants

  The Digital Markets Unit of the Competitions and Markets Authority aims to protect consumer privacy and lower barriers to entry for businesses

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Algorithmic transparency obligations needed in public sector

  Public sector’s use of algorithms with social impacts needs to be more transparent to foster trust and hold organisations responsible for the negative outcomes their systems may produce, says report

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  NI police unable to delete data seized unlawfully from journalists for 10 years

  The Police Service of Northern Ireland is unable to delete terabytes of unlawfully seized data taken from journalists who exposed police failings in the investigation of the Loughinisland sectarian murders

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  How Grab is using technology to improve trust and safety

  Southeast Asian unicorn Grab is tapping artificial intelligence and other technologies to keep its users safe and cyber criminals at bay

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Data safes will give users control over their data

  Belgian computer scientist tells Computer Weekly how people can regain control of their online personal information

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  APAC plagued by APT, ransomware attacks

  The Asia-Pacific region was a primary target of advanced persistent threat groups, mostly from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, that carried out 34 campaigns between June 2019 to June 2020

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Three cyber criminals arrested in Nigerian BEC investigation

  Prolific cyber criminal gang is thought to have compromised up to half a million victims since 2017

• 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

  Use of abusive stalkerware against women skyrocketed in 2020

  Rise in the use of malicious stalkerware correlates closely to increased domestic violence during lockdown

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Belgian security researcher hacks Tesla with Raspberry Pi

  Belgian security researcher Lennert Wouters once again succeeds in hacking a Tesla vehicle, this time by exploiting the Bluetooth Low Energy standard

• 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

  NCSC issues retail security alert ahead of Black Friday sales

  National Cyber Security Centre issues refreshed guidance as cyber criminals turn their eyes to the holiday shopping season

• 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

  Finnish finance giant pilots fingerprint payments

  OP Financial introduces biometric security technology to enable higher-value payments to be made safely using contactless cards

• 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 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  Inside Huawei’s APAC cloud strategy

  The Chinese technology giant is counting on its strengths in hardware infrastructure and focus on research and development to make a mark in Asia Pacific’s public cloud market

• 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 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  HM Land Registry drafts digital ID standards

  The department’s draft identity-checking requirements aims to provide clarity for software developers creating solutions to be used for property lawyers

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Covid-19 shift to remote working adds to Earth’s growing e-waste problem

  The shift to remote working has forced firms to purchase new IT equipment, but many are still lacking sustainable end-of-life processes for their devices

• 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 18, 2020 18 Nov'20

  How Aarogya Setu is addressing scale and security challenges

  India’s contact-tracing platform leverages microservices, encryption techniques and cloud-based visibility tools to address scale and security requirements

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  Automated image recognition: How using ‘free’ photos on the internet can lead to lawsuits and fines

  Germany-based photographer Marco Verch uses computer scripts to populate the internet with topical images and photographs. People and companies who make mistakes in following the complex licensing terms of his ‘free to share and adapt’ photographs ...

• 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

  Ransomware stats overload risks confusing buyers

  UK-based organisations are either more, or less, likely to pay ransoms, depending on which cyber security supplier you want to believe

• 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

  How Standard Chartered approaches cyber security

  Bank uses security-by-design principles and conducts red-teaming exercises among other measures to fend off cyber breaches

• 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

  Resident Evil studio Capcom confirms scale of Ragnar Locker breach

  Videogame studio says the data of up to 350,000 people was likely to have been compromised in a Ragnar Locker ransomware attack

• 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 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Hackney systems could be unavailable for months, says council

  A month after a highly disruptive cyber attack on its systems, Hackney Council is still struggling to get back up and running

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Ticketmaster fined £1.25m by ICO for failing to protect customer data

  Ticket website’s customer data was exposed through an attack on a third-party chatbot

• 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

  Online kids’ game Animal Jam confirms large breach

  Cyber criminals have stolen data on 46 million Animal Jam player accounts via a third-party attack

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  IT Priorities 2020: Budgets rejigged to support 2021 recovery

  IT has been essential in helping organisations remain operational. IT chiefs are now considering the IT to drive a sustained business recovery

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  DCMS opens talks with private sector on future of digital identity market

  Department has met with suppliers to discuss plans for a trust framework to show ‘what good looks like’ as it ploughs ahead with digital identity plans

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  Company accused of spying on Assange acted for Ecuadorian Intelligence, says ex UC Global manager

  Former operations chief of UC Global told Spanish Court the company accused of spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London was acting on the orders of Ecuadorian Intelligence

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  What businesses can learn from GovTech’s digital strategy

  Modernising its infrastructure and putting digital at its core has given Singapore’s Government Technology Agency the agility it needs to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic

• 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

  Security pros coped admirably with remote working transition

  Despite facing tight timescales at the onset of the pandemic, security professionals have come through the transition to remote working remarkably well, according to a report

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Gartner: IT spending to focus on fast time to value

  There are no surprises in Gartner’s latest forecast. IT budgets are being spent on supporting remote workers, but CIOs have new metrics

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Amazon charged with breaching EU antitrust rules

  Tech giant accused of using data it collects on smaller retailers to benefit its own e-commerce business

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Microsoft drops fix for serious zero-day among 112 Patch Tuesday updates

  November’s Patch Tuesday contains fixes for 112 bugs, including a potentially serious zero-day exploit that malicious actors are already taking advantage of

• 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