News

Privacy and data protection

• April 11, 2023 11 Apr'23

  KFC, Pizza Hut data stolen in January ransomware attack

  Yum!, the parent organisation behind KFC and Pizza Hut in the UK, has disclosed that employee data was accessed and exfiltrated in a January 2023 ransomware attack

• April 06, 2023 06 Apr'23

  IBM's Nataraj Nagaratnam on the cyber challenges facing cloud services

  Governments are introducing increasingly prescriptive data protection policies, but with organisations becoming ever more reliant on multiple cloud service platforms for essential business needs, how can they ensure they meet regulatory requirements?

• April 06, 2023 06 Apr'23

  Clop ransomware booms in March as Fortra zero-day pays off for gang

  Backed by the threat actor tracked variously as Gold Tahoe and TA505, the Clop ransomware operation hit new ‘heights’ of activity last month, according to researchers

• April 05, 2023 05 Apr'23

  Cops bust Genesis cyber crime marketplace

  Multinational Operation Cookie Monster takes down Genesis Market, a crucial source of compromised data used by criminals for fraud and other cyber attacks

• April 05, 2023 05 Apr'23

  Italy’s ChatGPT ban: Sober precaution or chilling overreaction?

  Italy’s data protection authority issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT citing data protection concerns and alleged breaches of the GDPR. Is this a reasonable precaution, or a chilling restriction on personal freedoms?

• April 04, 2023 04 Apr'23

  TikTok fined in UK over unlawful use of children’s data

  The ICO has fined TikTok £12.7m for breaches of data protection law, including unlawfully collecting data on children under 13

• April 04, 2023 04 Apr'23

  National Cyber Force carrying out daily hacking operations to disrupt hostile threats

  Government discloses details about the National Cyber Force’s disruption activities against terrorists, organised criminals and nation states – and names first NCF chief as James Babbage

• April 03, 2023 03 Apr'23

  Australia’s media and telecoms sector saw most data breaches in 2022

  The media and telecoms industry accounted for the bulk of stolen credentials in Australia in 2022, underscoring the need to shore up the country’s cyber security posture

• March 31, 2023 31 Mar'23

  Mounting Russian disinformation campaign targeting Arab world

  Researchers have found evidence of a broad Russian disinformation campaign targeting Arabic-speakers in the Middle East and North Africa

• March 30, 2023 30 Mar'23

  NHS Highland rapped over data breach affecting HIV patients

  NHS Highland inadvertently exposed the personal data of individuals likely to be accessing HIV services in a lapse of email hygiene

• March 29, 2023 29 Mar'23

  UK government publishes AI whitepaper

  Artificial intelligence whitepaper outlines UK government’s proposals to regulate the technology, which are based around creating an agile, “pro-innovation” framework

• March 29, 2023 29 Mar'23

  How organisations can weaponise data privacy

  Organisations should turn data privacy into a competitive advantage and look beyond regulatory compliance to build a privacy programme that aligns with business targets, says Gartner

• March 29, 2023 29 Mar'23

  Generative AI presents opportunities and challenges to UK schools

  Generative AI and LLMs hold great potential for use in the classroom, but the privacy and security implications of its use must be carefully considered, says the Department for Education

• March 28, 2023 28 Mar'23

  Ransomware attacks up 45% in February, LockBit responsible

  NCC Group says it observed a surge in ransomware attacks in February, with LockBit, BlackCat and BianLian all highly active

• March 27, 2023 27 Mar'23

  France latest to ban TikTok on government devices

  Following bans in the UK and US, France has moved to enact restrictions on TikTok, and other social media apps, on government devices

• March 22, 2023 22 Mar'23

  Why Veeam thinks ransomware warranty payouts are unlikely

  Veeam Data Platform v12 offers a financial guarantee to customers that can’t restore after ransomware attacks, but the backup supplier is convinced it won’t be making many payouts

• March 22, 2023 22 Mar'23

  Government launches seven-year NHS cyber strategy

  The new Cyber Security Strategy for Health and Adult Social Care lays out a plan for promoting cyber resilience in the sector by 2030 to protect services and patients alike

• March 21, 2023 21 Mar'23

  Nordics move towards common cyber defence strategy

  Nordic countries agree to work together to improve their cyber defences amid increasing threat

• March 21, 2023 21 Mar'23

  How Mimecast thinks differently about email security

  Mimecast CEO Peter Bauer believes the company’s comprehensive approach towards email security has enabled it to remain relevant to customers for two decades

• March 21, 2023 21 Mar'23

  Hitachi Energy emerges as victim of Clop gang’s Fortra attack

  The power and energy division of Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has disclosed that it has fallen victim to a Clop cyber attack, but insists customer data is safe

• 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 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 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 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 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

  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 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 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 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

  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 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 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

• February 16, 2023 16 Feb'23

  How to tame the identity sprawl

  Organisations should find a comprehensive way to gain full visibility into their digital identities and leverage automation to tame the identify sprawl