News

Privacy and data protection

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  US extradition of Julian Assange is ‘state retaliation’ for exposing war crimes, court hears

  Lawyers argue that the US extradition case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is politically motivated and in is breach of the UK-US extradition treaty

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  LockBit gang members arrested in Poland and Ukraine

  The UK’s National Crime Agency and its global partners have shared more details on their audacious takedown of the LockBit ransomware operation, including news of two arrests

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  Government agrees law to protect confidential journalistic material from state hacking

  The government will update Investigatory Powers Act to require secret intelligence agencies to seek independent approval before accessing confidential journalistic material obtained by bulk hacking, but journalists remain vulnerable to other bulk ...

• February 15, 2024 15 Feb'24

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces last appeal against ‘political’ extradition

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seeking leave to appeal against extradition to the US in a case that could have chilling implications for journalists reporting on national security

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Microsoft: Nation-state hackers are exploiting ChatGPT

  Threat actors from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia have all been probing use cases for generative AI service ChatGPT, but have yet to use such tools in a full-blown cyber attack

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Dutch Supreme Court approves use of EncroChat evidence

  Defence lawyers plan appeal to European Court of Human Rights after Supreme Court upholds a conviction based on intercepted messages from the EncroChat encrypted phone network

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Southern Water customer data was taken in ransomware attack

  Southern Water has started to contact customers whose data was stolen in a January 2024 ransomware attack on its systems

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Met Police to scrap and replace ‘racist’ Gangs Violence Matrix

  A database used by the Metropolitan Police to identify and track people linked with gang violence is being decommissioned and replaced. The decision follows a long-running controversy over its discriminatory impacts on young black people, but ...

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Security experts: Investigatory powers plans will delay security updates

  Cyber security experts warn that government proposals to amend the Investigatory Powers Act will limit tech companies’ ability to respond to security threats and could hamper the use of end-to-end encryption

• February 13, 2024 13 Feb'24

  What will result from Cohesity’s Veritas acquisition?

  The $7bn backup giant will leverage huge assets in enterprise customer base, compliance and governance intelligence, AI, R&D, and Kubernetes backup and storage

• February 08, 2024 08 Feb'24

  Why open data is needed in the battle to address homelessness

  Centrepoint needed to send FOIs to more than 300 local authorities in England to access required information

• February 08, 2024 08 Feb'24

  Executive alleged to be behind EncroChat encrypted phone network arrested

  A businessman allegedly behind EncroChat, an encrypted phone network that was used by organised crime groups, has been extradited from the Dominican Republic to France

• February 07, 2024 07 Feb'24

  NCSC warns CNI operators over ‘living-off-the-land’ attacks

  Malicious, state-backed actors may well be lurking in the UK’s most critical networks right now, and their operators may not even know until it is too late, warn the NCSC and its partners

• February 07, 2024 07 Feb'24

  Dozens of surveillance companies are supplying spyware to governments, says Google

  Google’s Threat Analysis Group has identified 40 companies involved in selling and supplying security exploits and spyware services to governments

• February 07, 2024 07 Feb'24

  How Iranian cyber ops pivoted to target Israel after 7 October attacks

  Microsoft has shared new intelligence on how Iranian government-aligned threat actors have turned their fire on Israel over the past four months

• February 07, 2024 07 Feb'24

  South Staffs Water faces group action over Clop ransomware attack

  South Staffordshire Plc, the parent company of South Staffordshire and Cambridge Water, is facing legal action from customers whose data was compromised in a 2022 Clop ransomware attack

• February 07, 2024 07 Feb'24

  AI ID specialist Onfido in talks to be bought by Entrust

  UK-based cyber unicorn Onfido agrees to enter talks to be acquired by Entrust

• February 06, 2024 06 Feb'24

  UK’s McPartland Cyber Review to probe trust in technology

  The UK government has launched a cyber security review that will investigate how best to give businesses the confidence they need to use new technologies

• February 06, 2024 06 Feb'24

  Inquiry to explore cyber risk to Sunak-Starmer showdown

  The UK’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy is opening an inquiry into securing the democratic process ahead of the next general election

• February 06, 2024 06 Feb'24

  UK and France push for international agreement on spyware

  The UK and France are hosting diplomats, big tech companies and civil society groups, in a two-day conference in London targeting the proliferation of spyware tools and ‘hackers for hire’

• February 01, 2024 01 Feb'24

  Welsh workers’ AI experiences shaped by uneven power dynamics

  Workers in Wales are being negatively affected by the unregulated introduction of artificial intelligence into workplaces due to asymmetric power dynamics

• January 29, 2024 29 Jan'24

  Lords question legality of police facial recognition

  Lords committee ‘deeply concerned’ about the rapid expansion of live facial recognition by UK police, which it says is progressing without any real oversight or accountability

• January 26, 2024 26 Jan'24

  Akira ransomware gang claims Lush cyber attack

  The Akira ransomware gang claims to have stolen over 100GB of data from cosmetics manufacturer and retailer Lush

• January 24, 2024 24 Jan'24

  WebKit vulnerability sparks Apple’s first major security update of 2024

  A zero-day in the open source WebKit browser engine that powers Safari has sparked Apple’s first major patch roll-out of the new year

• January 24, 2024 24 Jan'24

  Southern Water confirms cyber attack after Black Basta claims

  Southern Water, which supplies millions of customers in southeast England, has confirmed it has fallen victim to a cyber attack, although its services appear to be running normally

• January 24, 2024 24 Jan'24

  AI will heighten global ransomware threat, says NCSC

  The benefits of artificial intelligence to cyber criminals being well-known, the NCSC now assesses it’s likely AI will soon be widely used to enhance ransomware attacks

• January 23, 2024 23 Jan'24

  Leak of 26 billion records may prove to be ‘mother of all breaches’

  The discovery of a dataset comprising 26 billion stolen records may prove to be record-breaking in both its size and the danger it poses to ordinary people

• January 23, 2024 23 Jan'24

  SEC bitcoin hack was result of SIM-swapping

  A cyber attack on the US financial regulator earlier in January 2024 occurred after hackers took over one of its mobile phone accounts in a so-called SIM-swapping attack

• January 22, 2024 22 Jan'24

  Chat control: Tech companies warn ministers over EU encryption plans

  Tech companies have written to EU ministers to urge them to back the European Parliament, rather than the European Commission, over proposed regulations to police child abuse

• January 19, 2024 19 Jan'24

  ICO prompts confusion over police cloud legality

  The UK data regulator has suggested that, despite major data protection concerns, it is likely to greenlight police cloud deployments because of an information-sharing agreement with the US government

• January 19, 2024 19 Jan'24

  Neighbouring Kent councils hit by simultaneous cyber attacks

  Canterbury, Dover and Thanet Councils in Kent have all been struck by simultaneous cyber attacks knocking systems offline, with indications of a link between all three

• January 17, 2024 17 Jan'24

  Victims of 2023 Capita data breaches head to High Court

  More than 5,000 people impacted by data breaches arising from two cyber incidents affecting outsourcer Capita have joined a group action lawsuit

• January 17, 2024 17 Jan'24

  Singapore proposes governance framework for generative AI

  AI Verify Foundation and Infocomm Media Development Authority have proposed a governance framework for generative AI to address the risks and concerns about the emerging technology

• January 16, 2024 16 Jan'24

  Kaspersky shares Pegasus spyware-hunting tool

  Kaspersky has developed a way of easily exposing the presence of Pegasus spyware on iOS devices and believes its methodology may also help users identify other such surveillance malware

• January 15, 2024 15 Jan'24

  British Library catalogues back online after ransomware attack

  The British Library has restored online access to its main catalogue of nearly 40 million items on a limited basis as it continues the long and arduous process of recovering from a ransomware attack

• January 15, 2024 15 Jan'24

  Russia hacked ex-MI6 chief’s emails – what they reveal is more Dad’s Army than deep state

  A Russian hacking group that published emails of ex-MI6 chief Richard Dearlove claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy, but it was more Dad’s Army than the ‘deep state’, Computer Weekly and Byline Times reveal

• January 15, 2024 15 Jan'24

  NCA director sacked after WhatsApp and email security breaches

  Nikki Holland, former director of investigations at the NCA, was sacked for “misconduct” after sending sensitive NCA information over personal email and WhatsApp

• January 12, 2024 12 Jan'24

  UK government seeks public views on impacts of AI-generated porn

  The government’s Pornography Review will look in part at the use of AI throughout the industry to generate sexually explicit content without people’s consent

• January 10, 2024 10 Jan'24

  SEC social media hack highlights value of MFA

  The US SEC briefly appeared to approve new bitcoin trading rules after a social media account was targeted by troublemakers, proving the value of MFA once again

• January 10, 2024 10 Jan'24

  Scotland ‘sleepwalking’ to mass surveillance with DPDI Bill

  The independent checks and balances over biometrics and biometric-enabled surveillance must be strengthened to prevent Scotland from sliding into a surveillance state along with the rest of the UK

• January 09, 2024 09 Jan'24

  Babuk Tortilla ransomware decryptor made available

  A joint effort between Cisco Talos, Avast and the Dutch police will bring relief to many victims of a variant of the Babuk ransomware known as Tortilla

• January 09, 2024 09 Jan'24

  Study reveals cyber risks to US elections

  With the 2024 US presidential election cycle beginning, a study produced by Arctic Wolf has highlighted big gaps in preparedness and resourcing at government bodies across the US

• January 08, 2024 08 Jan'24

  British Library ransomware attack could cost up to £7m

  The cost of recovering the British Library’s ransomware-stricken IT systems could be up to £7m, it has emerged

• January 08, 2024 08 Jan'24

  Inside the Met Police’s investigation into EncroChat crime gangs

  The Met’s senior investigating officer responsible for investigating criminals using the EncroChat encrypted phone network tells the inside story of the UK’s biggest organised crime bust in a BBC podcast series released this week

• January 03, 2024 03 Jan'24

  Fighting money laundering with AI

  Mike Foster, CEO of SymphonyAI Sensa-NetReveal, talks up how AI can be used to fight financial crime and how the company’s technology can augment existing AML investments

• January 02, 2024 02 Jan'24

  China’s UNC4841 pivots to new Barracuda ESG zero-day

  The Chinese state threat actor behind a series of cyber attacks on Barracuda Networks customers embarked on a campaign targeting the supplier’s email security products in the run-up to Christmas

• December 29, 2023 29 Dec'23

  Top 10 India IT stories of 2023

  We recap the year’s top 10 stories in India, including the country’s datacentre boom and innovations in space and agriculture technologies

• December 29, 2023 29 Dec'23

  Top 10 AI regulation stories of 2023

  From the UK government’s publication of its long-awaited AI whitepaper to its convening of the world’s first AI Safety Summit, here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 AI regulation stories of 2023

• December 28, 2023 28 Dec'23

  Top 10 technology and ethics stories of 2023

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 technology and ethics stories of 2023

• December 27, 2023 27 Dec'23

  Top 10 police technology stories of 2023

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 police technology stories of 2023