News

Privacy and data protection

• February 14, 2025 14 Feb'25

  Lenovo CSO: AI adoption fuels security paranoia

  Doug Fisher, Lenovo’s chief security officer, outlines the company’s approach to security and AI governance, and the importance of having a strong security culture to combat cyber threats amplified by the use of AI

• February 14, 2025 14 Feb'25

  Government renames AI Safety Institute and teams up with Anthropic

  Addressing the Munich Security Conference, UK government technology secretary Peter Kyle announces a change to the name of the AI Safety Institute and a tie-up with AI company Anthropic

• February 14, 2025 14 Feb'25

  Top cryptography experts join calls for UK to drop plans to snoop on Apple’s encrypted data

  Some of the world’s leading computer science experts have signed an open letter calling for home secretary Yvette Cooper to drop a controversial secret order to require Apple to provide access to people’s encrypted data

• February 13, 2025 13 Feb'25

  UK accused of political ‘foreign cyber attack’ on US after serving secret snooping order on Apple

  US administration asked to kick UK out of 65-year-old UK-US Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement after secret order to access encrypted data of Apple users

• February 11, 2025 11 Feb'25

  Google: Cyber crime meshes with cyber warfare as states enlist gangs

  A report from the Google Threat Intelligence Group depicts China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as a bloc using cyber criminal gangs to attack the national security of western countries

• February 10, 2025 10 Feb'25

  Apple: British techies to advise on ‘devastating’ UK global crypto power grab

  A hitherto unknown British organisation – which even the government may have forgotten about – is about to be drawn into a global technical and financial battle, facing threats from Apple to pull out of the UK

• February 07, 2025 07 Feb'25

  Tech companies brace after UK demands back door access to Apple cloud

  The UK has served a notice on Apple demanding back door access to encrypted data stored by users anywhere in the world on Apple’s cloud service

• February 07, 2025 07 Feb'25

  US lawmakers move to ban DeepSeek AI tool

  US politicians have introduced a bill seeking to ban the use of the DeepSeek AI tool on government-owned devices, citing national security concerns due to its alleged links to the Chinese state

• February 05, 2025 05 Feb'25

  Met Police spied on BBC journalists’ phone data for PSNI, MPs told

  The Metropolitan Police monitored the phones of 16 BBC journalists on behalf of police in Northern Ireland, a cross-party group of MPs heard

• February 05, 2025 05 Feb'25

  Youth activists protest Meta over mental health impacts

  Protest outside Meta’s London offices marks launch of Mad Youth Campaign, an effort by activists to challenge the ways in which corporate power negatively shapes the conditions young people live under

• February 03, 2025 03 Feb'25

  New Relic extends observability to DeepSeek

  The observability tools supplier now offers enhanced monitoring for DeepSeek models to help businesses reduce the costs and risks of generative AI development

• February 03, 2025 03 Feb'25

  DeepSeek-R1 more readily generates dangerous content than other large language models

  Research scientists at cyber firm Enkrypt AI publish concerning findings from a red team exercise conducted against DeepSeek, the hot new generative AI tool

• February 03, 2025 03 Feb'25

  Australian government doubles down on AWS

  Federal government signs three-year whole-of-government agreement with Amazon Web Services, expanding access to cloud services for all levels of government

• January 31, 2025 31 Jan'25

  Police swoop on Sky ECC cryptophone distributors in Spain and Holland

  Dutch and Spanish police have arrested four people accused of making millions of euros by distributing Sky ECC encrypted phones to criminal organisations

• January 31, 2025 31 Jan'25

  AI jailbreaking techniques prove highly effective against DeepSeek

  Researchers at Palo Alto have shown how novel jailbreaking techniques were able to fool breakout GenAI model DeepSeek into helping to create keylogging tools, steal data, and make a Molotov cocktail

• January 31, 2025 31 Jan'25

  DeepSeek API, chat log exposure a ‘rookie’ cyber error

  Security researchers at Wiz find a trove of DeepSeek data including API secrets and chat logs publicly exposed via an open source database management tool, raising questions about the fast-growing service’s approach to security

• 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

  Over 40 journalists and lawyers submit evidence to PSNI surveillance inquiry

  Angus McCullough, who is leading a review into the police surveillance of journalists and lawyers in Northern Ireland, says victims will be informed if they were unlawfully spied on – subject to ‘legal constraints’

• January 27, 2025 27 Jan'25

  Three sentenced over OTP.Agency MFA fraud service

  Three men have been sentenced over their role in a cyber criminal subscription service that offered access to online accounts using illicitly obtained one-time passcodes

• January 24, 2025 24 Jan'25

  US indicts five in fake North Korean IT contractor scandal

  The US authorities have accused five men, including two American citizens, of involvement in a scheme which saw companies duped into hiring fake North Korean IT contractors

• January 24, 2025 24 Jan'25

  High Court: Sky Betting ‘parasitic’ in targeting problem gambler

  UK High Court rules that Sky Betting acted unlawfully after breaching a customer’s data protection rights when it obtained his personal data through cookies and used it to profile him for the purposes of direct marketing, despite his ‘impaired’ ...

• January 23, 2025 23 Jan'25

  ICO launches major review of cookies on UK websites

  ICO sets out 2025 goals, including a review of cookie compliance across the UK’s top 1,000 websites, as it seeks to achieve its ultimate goal of giving the public meaningful control over how their data is used

• 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 22, 2025 22 Jan'25

  Europol seeks evidence of encryption on crime enforcement as it steps-up pressure on Big Tech

  Europol wants examples of police investigations hampered by end-to-end encryption as it pressures tech companies to provide law enforcement access to encrypted messages

• January 17, 2025 17 Jan'25

  US Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban

  The US Supreme Court has upheld a legal ban on TikTok, meaning that the video-sharing application will be shut down from midnight on Sunday 19 January

• January 16, 2025 16 Jan'25

  Biden signs new cyber order days before Trump inauguration

  With days left in the White House, outgoing US president Joe Biden has signed a wide-ranging cyber security executive order with far-reaching implications

• January 16, 2025 16 Jan'25

  Russia’s Star Blizzard pivots to WhatsApp in spear-phishing campaign

  The Russian cyber spy operation known as Star Blizzard changed tactics after a takedown operation by Microsoft and the US authorities, turning to widely used messaging platform WhatsApp to try to ensnare its targets

• January 16, 2025 16 Jan'25

  Davos 2025: Digital supply chains at risk as world faces two years of turbulence

  World Economic Forum urges digital business leaders to build the resilience of supply chains, improve cyber defences and develop contingency plans

• January 15, 2025 15 Jan'25

  Cyber security dovetails with AI to lead 2025 corporate IT investment

  Cyber security and GenAI top enterprise IT investment plans for 2025, whether singly or together, according to research from Enterprise Strategy Group

• January 15, 2025 15 Jan'25

  Users protest, flee TikTok as clock ticks on US ban

  As the US Supreme Court prepares to rule on the future of TikTok, rumours of a sale are swirling around Washington DC while panicked users make plans for an exodus

• January 15, 2025 15 Jan'25

  Davos 2025: Misinformation and disinformation are most pressing risks, says World Economic Forum

  World leaders, business chiefs and civil society organisations will discuss the risks posed by misinformation, disinformation and artificial intelligence at the World Economic Forum

• January 14, 2025 14 Jan'25

  Barings Law enleagues 15,000 claimants against Google and Microsoft

  Barings Law has signed up 15,000 claimants in a data breach suit against Microsoft and Google. The firm says the tech giants use personal data without proper consent to train AI models

• January 10, 2025 10 Jan'25

  US bank FNBO uses Pindrop to tackle voice fraud, deepfakes

  Learn how First National Bank of Omaha in the US is enhancing customer authentication and verification in its contact centres, eliminating friction points and making life easier for its customer service teams, with Pindrop voice security technology

• January 08, 2025 08 Jan'25

  German court finds hacked EncroChat phone evidence inadmissible

  The Berlin Regional Court has found that evidence obtained by a joint French and Dutch operation to hack the EncroChat encrypted mobile phone network is legally inadmissible, raising questions about its use in other European countries

• January 07, 2025 07 Jan'25

  Saudi Arabia calls for humanitarian AI after tightening screws on rights protesters

  Oppressive state wants global digital identity system at the heart of all AI, to make it trustworthy and prevent it being used for ‘unauthorised surveillance’

• December 31, 2024 31 Dec'24

  Top 10 surveillance, journalism and encryption stories of 2024

  Revelations of covert and unlawful monitoring of journalists and their confidential sources by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police attracted a huge amount of attention this year

• December 27, 2024 27 Dec'24

  Top 10 ANZ stories of 2024

  The 2024 tech landscape in Australia and New Zealand was dotted with developments spanning cloud migrations and AI adoption to heightened data security and real-time data streaming

• December 24, 2024 24 Dec'24

  Top 10 police technology stories of 2024

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 police technology stories of 2024

• December 20, 2024 20 Dec'24

  Top 10 data and ethics stories of 2024

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 data and ethics stories of 2024

• 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 17, 2024 17 Dec'24

  Conservative MP adds to calls for public inquiry over PSNI police spying

  Conservative MP David Davis calls for a public inquiry following a court ruling that the PSNI and Metropolitan Police unlawfully placed journalists under electronic surveillance

• December 17, 2024 17 Dec'24

  Digital Ethics Summit 2024: recognising AI’s socio-technical nature

  At trade association TechUK’s eighth annual Digital Ethics Summit, public officials and industry figures and civil society groups met to discuss the ethical challenges associated with the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools globally and ...

• December 17, 2024 17 Dec'24

  Tribunal criticises PSNI and Met Police for spying operation to identify journalists’ sources

  The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has criticised the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police for unlawfully spying on journalists

• 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 11, 2024 11 Dec'24

  Russia focuses cyber attacks on Ukraine rather than West despite rising tension

  Computer Weekly talks to GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre operations director Paul Chichester and former NCSC chief executive Ciaran Martin on Russia, China and Salt Typhoon

• 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