News

Security policy and user awareness

• August 21, 2023 21 Aug'23

  Cyber Explorers programme reaches 50,000 11-14 year olds in 18 months

  The government-backed Cyber Explorers programme has reached 50,000 students in its first 18 months, and more schools are being invited to sign up for the Autumn Term

• August 18, 2023 18 Aug'23

  NatWest customer calls bank’s handling of breach of his data ‘disgusting’

  A second NatWest customer has contacted Computer Weekly after finding out from a whistleblower that his sensitive personal data has been in her home for 14 years

• August 17, 2023 17 Aug'23

  Researchers demo fake airplane mode exploit that tricks iPhone users

  Exploit chain that tricks a victim into believing their iOS device is offline in airplane mode when it is not could open the door to grave privacy concerns

• August 17, 2023 17 Aug'23

  Top marks for graduates of CIISec vocational cyber course

  132 young people who sat the UK’s first Extended Project Qualification in Cyber Security have received their results today

• August 16, 2023 16 Aug'23

  CyberArk eyes growth beyond PAM

  CyberArk is seeing exponential growth in the broader identity security market as the company expands its capabilities beyond privileged access management

• August 16, 2023 16 Aug'23

  ITAM influence on cyber risk becoming a factor in credit ratings

  Credit agency S&P Global Ratings warns that organisations that pay inadequate attention to IT asset management as a factor in their cyber risk management processes may find their creditworthiness takes a dive

• August 15, 2023 15 Aug'23

  Norfolk and Suffolk police hit by FoI-linked data breach

  Latest UK police data breach relates to crime suspects, victims and witnesses across East Anglia, and comes just days after a similar incident at the Northern Irish service

• August 15, 2023 15 Aug'23

  Online safety message failing to get through to women

  The security community could be doing a lot more to make its advice and guidance more accessible to women, according to a study

• August 14, 2023 14 Aug'23

  US Cyber Board to probe cloud security after latest Exchange hack

  CSRB review of cloud security comes in the wake of a major Chinese cyber attack on US government bodies orchestrated through Microsoft’s cloud services

• August 10, 2023 10 Aug'23

  Google speeds up security update frequency for Chrome

  Changes to Google’s security update policy are supposed to help close the gap in which cyber criminals can exploit n-day vulnerabilities

• August 10, 2023 10 Aug'23

  PSNI investigating second breach after laptop stolen

  Just hours after accidentally disclosing the personal details of 10,000 personnel, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has notified a second data breach after a police issue laptop and documents were stolen from a parked car

• August 09, 2023 09 Aug'23

  Microsoft addresses Office vulnerability attacked by Russian spooks in latest update

  Microsoft has issued fixes for over 70 vulnerabilities in its August Patch Tuesday drop, including remedies for CVE-2023-36884, which was disclosed without a fix in July and has been the subject of Kremlin-backed cyber attacks

• August 09, 2023 09 Aug'23

  Northern Irish police expose staff data in botched FoI response

  Human error is being blamed for the leak of personally identifiable information on all serving officers and civilian staff at the Police Service of Northern Ireland

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  MPs warn about growing prevalence of tech-enabled domestic abuse

  The UK government must take action to prevent perpetrators from being able to use connected or smart technologies to conduct their domestic abuse, a select committee has warned

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  UK voter data hacked in cyber attack on election watchdog

  An unknown threat actor who attacked the UK’s Electoral Commission had access to data on millions of UK voters for over a year, the watchdog has revealed

• August 08, 2023 08 Aug'23

  Many UK organisations considering ChatGPT bans on employee devices

  More than 60% of organisations in the UK have either banned, or are considering banning, the use of generative AI tools on employee- or business-owned devices

• August 07, 2023 07 Aug'23

  Microsoft fixes Azure flaw that was subject of researcher criticism

  Microsoft has confirmed a potentially-dangerous flaw in the Azure platform has now been fully fixed, and moved to reassure customers that despite criticism it is committed to responsible disclosure and timely fixes

• August 07, 2023 07 Aug'23

  Rise in fraudsters spoofing the websites of leading UK banks

  Despite safeguards to protect customers from scams, UK retail banks are still seeing high volumes of fake phishing websites exploiting their brands, and the problem seems to be increasing in scope and scale

• August 04, 2023 04 Aug'23

  Log4Shell, ProxyShell still among most widely exploited flaws

  Statistics released by the collective Five Eyes cyber agencies reveals insight into the most exploited vulnerabilities of 2022, and unsurprisingly there are some old ‘friends’ on the list

• August 04, 2023 04 Aug'23

  Biden’s SBOM mandate a ‘shot heard around the world’, report says

  Two years and three months after Joe Biden mandated new standards in supply chain security, over 40% of UK respondents to a survey say they have implemented new SBOM policies in direct response

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Scottish NHS trust ducks fine after staff shared patient data via WhatsApp

  NHS Lanarkshire has been issued a formal reprimand by the ICO after staff members used WhatsApp to share patients’ personal data with one another

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Plexal takes on new cohort for cyber security leadership scheme

  Six more cyber security startup founders have been selected to take part in Plexal’s latest Cyber Runway Ignite programme, which is designed to help them develop their leadership skills

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Cozy Bear hijacks SME Microsoft 365 tenants in latest campaign

  Microsoft shares intelligence on a newly observed Cozy Bear campaign that saw the APT take over genuine Microsoft 365 tenants and subvert them to try to phish its victims

• August 03, 2023 03 Aug'23

  Microsoft attacked over ‘grossly irresponsible’ security practice

  The CEO of Tenable has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft, asserting that the organisation is deliberately keeping its Azure cloud customers in the dark about dangerous vulnerabilities and accusing it of a culture of ‘toxic obfuscation’

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Pig butchers caught using ChatGPT to con victims

  Romance scammers looking to con people out of their savings appear to be turning to generative AI tools to save time and effort

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Ivanti MDM users told to patch against two dangerous flaws

  Users of Ivanti’s mobile device management platform have been warned to act now to patch two vulnerabilities that were chained by a threat actor in a series of cyber attacks on the Norwegian government

• July 28, 2023 28 Jul'23

  How Indian organisations are keeping pace with cyber security

  Indian organisations are shoring up their defences to improve their cyber resilience amid intensifying cyber threats targeted at key sectors such as healthcare and logistics

• July 27, 2023 27 Jul'23

  Cyber criminals pivot away from ransomware encryption

  Cyber breaches that saw data theft and extortion without an encryption or ransomware component account for more and more incidents, in a possible indication that ransomware gangs are changing up their business models

• July 27, 2023 27 Jul'23

  US cyber breach reporting rules to have global impact

  Organisations that operate as Foreign Private Issuers in the US will have to get to grips with strict new cyber breach reporting regulations handed down by the SEC in Washington

• July 26, 2023 26 Jul'23

  UK organisations lack confidence to carry out basic cyber tasks

  Amid a shortfall of more than 10,000 cyber pros, UK businesses are still finding it difficult to fill their cyber security skills gaps, with even those in charge of security saying they lack confidence in themselves

• July 25, 2023 25 Jul'23

  Cisco, BT and others launch network security coalition

  Network Resilience Coalition focuses on bringing together global expertise to improve data and network security

• July 25, 2023 25 Jul'23

  Tetra radio users’ comms may have been exposed for years

  A number of flaws in the encryption algorithms used in the secure Tetra radio communications standard have potentially left users exposed to snooping

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Citrix NetScaler users told to patch new zero-day urgently

  A vulnerability disclosed and patched last week by Citrix appears to be being exploited by China-backed threat actors as a zero-day, prompting warnings from government cyber bodies

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Security AI and automation may reduce cost of data breaches

  Organisations that go all in on security AI and automation tend to incur lower financial costs when they experience a data breach incident, according to an IBM report

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Why cyber security should be part of your ESG strategy

  The impact of data breaches and cyber threats on businesses, societies and the environment makes cyber security a key consideration in an environment, social and governance strategy

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Renowned hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick dead at 59

  Famed hacker and social engineer Kevin Mitnick, who was at one time one of the most wanted cyber criminals in the world, has died peacefully at the age of 59 from complications arising from pancreatic cancer, following a 14-month illness

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  How the DSMA balances security and privacy with press freedom

  In a world of information sharing and 24-hour news cycles, the Defence and Security Media Advisory committee have to balance national security and data privacy with freedom of the press

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Attention-seeking KillNet hacktivists becoming more dangerous

  The KillNet DDoS gang seems to be becoming more dangerous, but its primary goal remains to create a lot of noise and draw media attention, according to latest analysis

• July 19, 2023 19 Jul'23

  Half of cyber pros engage in risky behaviour at work, report claims

  Approximately 55% of security professionals say they have engaged in behaviours they would more usually advise against in the workplace, according to a report

• July 19, 2023 19 Jul'23

  Cyber criminal AI tool WormGPT produces ‘unsettling’ results

  A newly discovered generative AI tool dubbed WormGPT is being sold to the cyber criminal underground via the dark web, and poses a significant danger, researchers warn

• July 17, 2023 17 Jul'23

  Police Scotland use cloud for biometric data despite clear risks

  Police Scotland confirms it has stored significant volumes of biometric data on a cloud-based digital evidence sharing system despite major ongoing data protection concerns, bringing into question the effectiveness of the current regulatory approach...

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  Microsoft issues new warning over Chinese cyber espionage

  A newly uncovered Chinese espionage campaign exploited forged authentication tokens to access its victims’ email accounts, says Microsoft

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  One month after MOVEit: New vulnerabilities found as more victims are named

  Five weeks after the mass MOVEit breach, new vulnerabilities in the file transfer tool are coming to light as the Clop cyber crime group continues to terrorise victims. But has the gang bitten off more than it can chew?

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Cozy Bear lures victims with used BMW 5 Series

  A recent Cozy Bear campaign saw the Russian APT group pivot to exploiting an advert for a used car as it targeted diplomatic missions in Kyiv

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Microsoft users on high alert over dangerous RCE zero-day

  A serious RCE vulnerability in Microsoft Office and Windows is among several zero-days disclosed in Redmond’s July Patch Tuesday update, but this one does not have a patch yet

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  EU formally grants data adequacy to US

  The European Commission has formally granted the US data adequacy, allowing companies and organisations to freely transfer personal data across the Atlantic via the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. But privacy activist Max Schrems has already committed...

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  Malicious URL volumes soar as cyber criminals pull on Threads

  Malicious actors have been quick to exploit the buzz around Meta’s newly launched Threads platform, with thousands of new suspicious domains registered exploiting its branding

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  Apple pushes Rapid Response patch to fix WebKit zero-day

  Apple deployed an emergency patch under its Rapid Security Response update programme, but had to temporarily suspend delivery after it caused problems for users of the Safari browser

• July 07, 2023 07 Jul'23

  Suspicious email reported every five seconds in UK

  National Cyber Security Centre report reveals a suspicious email was reported by UK citizens and organisations every five seconds last year

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Meta’s Threads hits app stores, but no EU launch in sight

  Meta’s Twitter competitor makes its debut and signs up millions of users in just 12 hours, but concerns over compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act have sunk a pan-European launch for now