News

Privacy and data protection

• 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

  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 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

  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

  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

  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 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

  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

• 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 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

  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

  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

  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 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

  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 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 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

  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

  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

  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

  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

  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