IT news in your industry sector

Consumers want tech-driven clothing stores

As consumers increasingly visit stores as the pandemic subsides, NTT Data finds that technology in shops could persuade consumers to return to physical shopping Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Poor training is worse than no training at all

Bad security training is a betrayal of users, a security risk, and ultimately a waste of money, but there are some reasons to be optimistic about the future, say Mike Gillespie and Ellie Hurst of Advent IM Continue Reading

Russian hacking group Seaborgium targets SNP MP Stewart McDonald

Scottish National Party MP Stewart McDonald says his personal emails have been hacked by a group linked to the Russian state in a targeted phishing attack Continue Reading

Cisco unveils toolkit for greater network visibility and control

Tech giant introduces cloud services in Operations Dashboard to increase industrial asset visibility and provide industrial IoT customers with path to cloud automation for Operational Technology Continue Reading

Campaigners lament lack of movement on Computer Misuse Act reform

Westminster has opened a new consultation on proposed reforms to the Computer Misuse Act of 1990, but campaigners who want the law changed to protect cyber professionals have been left disappointed Continue Reading

Augmented reality in retail: The second coming

H&M, Avon, Very and others’ usage of augmented reality in retail could mean we’re reaching tipping point for the technology in 2023 Continue Reading

Rakuten targets big edge deployments with Symworld Cloud

Japanese giant Rakuten bought Kubernetes management platform Robin.io and put it in 50,000-plus telco antennas. Now it aims Symworld Cloud at enterprise edge deployments Continue Reading

Container storage platforms: Big six approach starts to align

Container storage is a complex but vital task. We survey the big six storage makers and see methods are starting to align around management platforms Continue Reading

UK government sets up dedicated department for science and technology

For the first time, the UK has a Cabinet-level role responsible for all science and technology policy, as part of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s departmental reshuffle Continue Reading

LockBit cartel finally claims Royal Mail ransomware attack

The LockBit ransomware gang claims it has stolen sensitive data from Royal Mail and will leak it later this week if its demands go unmet Continue Reading

APP fraud reimbursement proposal is ‘fundamentally flawed’, say MPs

MPs claim the involvement of a bank-sponsored organisation in reimbursing victims of APP fraud would be a conflict of interest Continue Reading

‘Profound’ digital pound decision faces policymakers

The UK Treasury has launched a consultation paper to help lay the foundations for a ‘profound decision’ over a digital currency Continue Reading

Benelux CIO interview: Marijn Grevink, leader of digital transformation, Mars

In an interview with Computer Weekly, the digital head at Mars, Marijn Grevink, takes the wrapper off digital transformation at the company in the Netherlands Continue Reading

TSB pilots pods as branch replacements

TSB joins Barclays in adopting banking pods to ensure customers have access to physical banking services as the number of high street branches declines Continue Reading

Cops make arrests and seize drugs after hacking Exclu encrypted messaging app

Police in the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland raided 80 addresses after covertly intercepting messages from the Exclu encrypted messaging app Continue Reading

Online banks still riddled with cyber security flaws, report says

Online bank Virgin Money was found to have the weakest online and application security measures in a Which? study but Nationwide, TSB and The Co-Operative Bank all failed on multiple points, too. Continue Reading

Making IT security training stick

In this week’s Computer Weekly, our latest buyer’s guide looks at IT security training, and asks whether gamification could be the secret to making it stick. We examine how the metaverse might change the way we work in real life. And we find out how job cuts across the tech sector affect employment opportunities for IT contractors in 2023. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Estonian anti-money laundering platform used to fight APP fraud

A real-time data-sharing platform originally built to identify money laundering is also being applied to the fight against authorised push payment fraud Continue Reading

Post Office branches struggling after Royal Mail cyber attack

Royal Mail has restored almost all of its international services to some extent, but remains unable to accept parcels bought over the counter in a Post Office branch Continue Reading

MoD needs to transform to succeed with digital strategy, says PAC

A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report says the department is ‘not well setup’ to effectively implement its digital change, and calls for both a cultural and organisational shift at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Continue Reading

The Security Interviews: How to overcome data protection compliance challenges

Complying with the vast swathe of data protection legislation around the world is complex, especially for smaller organisations without the necessary expertise. Could the compliance process be simplified, and if so, how? Continue Reading

Backup maintenance: Make sure backups can deliver

Deploying backup but overlooking the need to make sure it works is a common error. We look at the why and how of backup maintenance to help ensure you can recover from your backups Continue Reading

UK seeks head of quantum office

A vacancy on the civil service jobs site suggests the UK’s new quantum strategy is about to be rolled out – and there’s going to be a new chief Continue Reading

Finance regulator finding more misleading promotions quicker through improved digital tools

UK finance regulator able to find and block misleading promotions faster through improved digital tools Continue Reading

LockBit gang confirms Ion cyber attack as disruption continues

The LockBit ransomware cartel has taken responsibility for this week’s attack on financial software firm Ion, and is threatening to leak stolen data on Saturday 4 February Continue Reading

FCA cracks down on misleading promos by social media influencers

Social media is becoming a major part of the FCA’s work in clamping down on misleading financial advertising and promotions, with multiple influencers rapped for their behaviour Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: In 2023, we need a new way to cultivate better habits

Regular, small adjustments to behaviour offer a better way to keep employees on track and cultivate a corporate culture of cyber awareness, writes Elastic’s Mandy Andress Continue Reading

Fixing the tech sector

Apple’s Q1 2023 filing shows a 5% decline from last year. Meanwhile Amazon reported its operating income decreased to $12.2 bn in 2022, compared with $24.9 bn in 2021. Alphabet, the parent company ... Continue Reading

MEPs vote to amend platform worker directive

MEPs have voted in favour of amendments to the European Commission’s platform worker directive that would introduce a presumption of employment and increase algorithmic transparency Continue Reading

Goodbye NHS Digital – a new era of NHS technology is upon us

As NHS Digital is officially merged into NHS England, Computer Weekly takes a look at the history of the organisation and what the merger could mean for the future of NHS IT Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Getting the training and development mix right

Rob Dartnall, CEO at SecAlliance and chair of Crest’s UK Council, describes the need for formal, varied and continuous development in the cyber security sector Continue Reading

Government plans to catch tax fraudsters with help of AI

Cabinet Office signs a deal with data analytics company Quantexa, aiming to use data and artificial intelligence to tackle public sector fraud Continue Reading

North Korea’s Lazarus gang exposes itself in opsec failure

WithSecure researchers linked a campaign of cyber attacks targeting medical research and energy firms to North Korea’s infamous Lazarus APT after a group member accidentally screwed up Continue Reading

Suspected LockBit ransomware attack causes havoc in City of London

A suspected LockBit ransomware attack on trading software firm Ion has caused chaos for City of London traders Continue Reading

UK government announces plans to protect consumers through cryptoasset regulation

UK government wants feedback on its plans to regulate organisations operating in the cryptoasset sector Continue Reading

Arnold Clark customer data was stolen in Play ransomware attack

Arnold Clark confirms data leaked on dark web was stolen from its systems in ransomware attack Continue Reading

Romance fraudsters stole £65m from Brits since 2020

Online romance fraudsters have scammed Brits out of £65m in the past three years, according to retail bank TSB Continue Reading

NCSC for Startups inducts four companies into programme

Four more startups are set to join the NCSC accelerator, which helps the UK government develop technology and approaches to pressing cyber security challenges Continue Reading

Cloud security top risk to enterprises in 2023, says study

A PwC study finds senior executives expect cyber attacks on cloud services to increase significantly this year Continue Reading

PayPal slashes 2,000 jobs in face of tough economic outlook

Fintech giant making thousands of redundancies as global economic outlook remains poor Continue Reading

Innovative Technology deploys age estimation tech in shops and pubs

A company involved in Home Office-led trials of biometric age estimation technologies has begun rolling out its hardware to UK shops and pubs so they can use its facial recognition algorithm to assure customers’ ages Continue Reading

Malware variant can block contactless payments

Kaspersky warns that the latest variant of the Prilex malware can block contactless payments to force people to insert cards, enabling criminals to steal money Continue Reading

UK Cyber Council and ISACA launch audit, assurance programme

The UK Cyber Security Council has teamed up with ISACA to partner on a new audit and assurance programme for security pros Continue Reading

Reaping green dividends with data management

Getting data management right has been pivotal for Singapore IoT startup SensorFlow to optimise energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions for its hotelier clients Continue Reading

Tech Nation to shutter after more than a decade

Tech Nation due to shutter after losing core funding to Barclays Eagle Labs, which will take over its role in supporting UK technology startups and scaleups Continue Reading

Crédit Agricole tests quantum in finance

The corporate and investment bank has run experiments with Pasqal and Multiverse to demo quantum computing in finance Continue Reading

MI5 unlawfully collected and held millions of people’s data

Secretive court finds MI5 knowingly acted unlawfully in use of bulk surveillance warrants, and the Home Office continued granting warrants despite information the agency was operating outside the law Continue Reading

Zurich Insurance Group plots multiyear move to AWS public cloud

Multiline insurance firm Zurich is plotting a move to the AWS public cloud to help revamp its customer offerings Continue Reading

Digital banking changing the high street forever as banks close branches and open alternatives

Banks are reshaping their channels as customers move to digital services, with physical innovation complementing digital strategies Continue Reading

Royal Mail recovers more International Tracked services

Royal Mail is making further progress in recovering IT systems hit by a ransomware attack, and has re-enabled another tranche of international export services Continue Reading

MPs warned of AI arms race to the bottom

Expert tells Parliamentary committee that tech companies developing artificial intelligence are cutting corners and placing safety on the backburner, opening up ‘enormous risks’ for the future of AI Continue Reading

ATO renews major Macquarie deal

The contract renewal will enable the Australian Tax Office to tap Macquarie’s security operations centre, among other services, to secure its IT environment and protect sensitive data Continue Reading

How the cost-of-living crisis is affecting IT

In this week’s Computer Weekly, with major tech companies announcing thousands of job cuts, we examine what the cost-of-living crisis means for IT leaders and tech professionals. We analyse what you need to consider when reversing systems out of the cloud and back on-premise. And Very Group’s CIO talks about the post-pandemic challenges facing online retailers. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Mark Logan on his vision for a Scottish technology ecosystem

The Scottish Government’s entrepreneur advisor speaks to Computer Weekly about the philosophy behind an ambitious technology ecosystem strategy Continue Reading

Tiger’s hybrid cloud storage targets medical imaging

Tiger Bridge targets vertical sectors that find it hard to migrate to the cloud by allowing data storage in the cloud while using files locally as if stored on-premise Continue Reading

Former Fujitsu staff under police investigation to face Post Office IT scandal inquiry

Two former Fujitsu IT professionals being investigated for potential perjury will face Post Office Horizon public inquiry in May Continue Reading

Data of 10 million JD Sports customers accessed in cyber attack

Data on 10 million people who shopped online at JD Sports over a two-year period was accessed and potentially stolen in a cyber attack Continue Reading

Lords question ‘extensive’ government online safety powers

Digital minister Paul Scully defends government Online Safety plans to give secretary of state powers to direct Ofcom Continue Reading

Hive ransomware gang taken down after FBI hacks back

The FBI hacked into Hive’s servers, stole its decryption keys and then took down its servers in a major action that has successfully disrupted a prolific and dangerous ransomware operation Continue Reading

Royal Mail resumes some international parcel services from UK

Royal Mail has successfully stood up its International Tracked and Signed, and International Signed, services as it continues to recover from a ransomware attack Continue Reading

Final months of 2022 saw highest ever number of bank account switches

More people than ever before switched their current account provider using the government’s switching service Continue Reading

NCSC exposes Iranian, Russian spear-phishing campaign targeting UK

Spear-phishing campaigns likely linked to Iranian and Russian espionage activity are targeting persons of interest in the UK, warns the NCSC Continue Reading

Will mass big tech lay-offs affect employment prospects of IT contractors in 2023?

With some of the biggest tech firms in the world announcing mass redundancies, will the flood of new entrants to the jobs market affect the prospects of IT contractors already looking for work amid the cost-of-living crisis? Continue Reading

UK Treasury recruiting digital currency leader

The UK government’s investigation into the merits of a central bank digital currency gathers pace at it looks for a team leader Continue Reading

Arnold Clark cyber attack claimed by Play ransomware gang

A cyber attack that struck car dealer Arnold Clark prior to Christmas has been claimed as the work of the Play ransomware cartel Continue Reading

Boards struggle to resolve cyber risk in digital supply chains

Accelerated digitisation of supply chains is introducing more cyber risk for which many organisations seem unprepared, according to the BSI’s annual report on supply chain risk Continue Reading

Green storage: Savings to be made but tricky to achieve

Storage upgrades can bring energy savings. New hardware, the cloud and as-a-service procurement models all cut costs, but can need careful tweaking to get right Continue Reading

Chinese IoT suppliers expose UK businesses to espionage and data theft

Chinese companies supplying network components, known as IoT modules, post a greater long-term threat to UK security than the now banned 5G supplier Huawei, according to a study by a Chinese expert and former diplomat Continue Reading

UK insurers need to up their game on cyber gaps, says PRA

Gaps and limitations in how insurers respond to cyber risk need to be addressed, according to the Bank of England regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority Continue Reading

IT’s shift to the cloud: Veeam’s data protection report in detail

With half of servers in the cloud, most backup and nearly all disaster recovery cloud-centric, the shift to the cloud is significant – but container backup is one area that is yet to settle down Continue Reading

Nationwide Building Society CIO to join Co-operative Bank

Gary Delooze to join Co-operative Bank as CIO after six years heading up Nationwide Building Society’s IT department Continue Reading

SSRF attacks hit 100,000 businesses globally since November

There has been a dramatic increase in attacks exploiting the ProxyNotShell/OWASSRF exploit chains to target Microsoft Exchange servers Continue Reading

Fake online contest makes Yahoo! most phished brand of Q4 2022

Yahoo! was the most frequently phished brand during the last three months of 2022, according to a report Continue Reading

SMEs keen on embedded finance, but more choice needed to increase take-up

Suppliers to small and medium-sized enterprises need to offer more choice when embedding financial products in their services if take-up is to increase Continue Reading

Executive interview: Andrew Roughan, CEO, Plexal

Plexal CEO Andrew Roughan talks about how tech startups collaborate with the government to transform public services, the barriers to entry, and how the process can be improved Continue Reading

CIO interview: Ed Higgs, group director of IT shared services, Rentokil Initial

The pest control provider has consolidated 77 datacentres globally to just three – but with a corporate culture of acquisitions, there’s still a lot more to do Continue Reading

NGX: Turkish arrays to challenge US mainstream storage vendors

Ankara-based NGX offers block, file and unified storage with use of cache and RAM to speed access. Software-defined storage, cloud and NVMe-over-fabrics are also coming Continue Reading

The rise of fraud in pop culture is impacting consumers’ digital trust

Shows such as The Tinder Swindler and Inventing Anna were big money-earners for Netflix in 2022, but Onfido’s Mike Tuchen says their popularity risks damaging consumer trust Continue Reading

Royal Society calls on public sector to pilot privacy tech

The Royal Society says public sector bodies should lead the way in piloting privacy-enhancing technologies to unlock the value of data without compromising privacy and data rights, but lack of standards and incentives mean adoption is slow Continue Reading

NCSC warning over cyber risk to charity sector

Cash-strapped charities without the resource to tackle their resilience deficit are increasingly at risk from malicious actors, says the NCSC Continue Reading

More than 1,000 tech roles chopped at Capital One

US bank makes tech job cuts as its digital transformation moves into a new phase Continue Reading

Cloud egress costs: What they are and how to dodge them

We look at how cloud providers charge to move data from their cloud, including to other providers and between storage in the same cloud, and what you can do to mitigate “bill shock” Continue Reading

Royal Mail making limited progress on ransomware recovery

Royal Mail asks customers to hold back from sending post overseas as some services get back on track, while a report warns that disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure are set to become more common Continue Reading

Barclays Eagle Labs awarded Digital Growth Grant over Tech Nation

Barclays Eagle Labs incubator to take over Tech Nation’s role in administering UK government digital growth grant amid backlash from startup ecosystem Continue Reading

DataCore software-defined storage helps car firm avoid breakdowns

Bontaz used to face regular IT outages that took too long to recover from. Then it got DataCore software-defined storage and the ability to rapidly recover from downtime Continue Reading

Veeam survey finds ransomware blocks digital transformation

Annual report shows secular trend to the cloud and increased use of containers, but prevalence of ransomware attacks means digital transformation is hindered Continue Reading

Atempo plots course to containerised backup with S3 storage

Containerised modularised backup services will allow integration with third-party systems and backup storage unified onto S3 object storage for cost and analytics purposes Continue Reading

Year-on-year growth down to more customers, says Ocado

As the customer landscape shifts, Ocado reports year-on-year revenue growth in the last quarter of 2022, bolstered by a successful Christmas Continue Reading

WhatsApp’s £4.8m fine raises questions for organisations using behavioural advertising

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has fined WhatsApp, owned by Meta, in a case that will raise questions for organisations that rely on contracts rather than consent to comply with GDPR when offering behavioural advertising Continue Reading

International post resumes thanks to Royal Mail ‘workarounds’

Royal Mail has resumed limited international services after putting in place operational workarounds to bypass the impact of a ransomware attack Continue Reading

KFC, Pizza Hut parent shuts UK restaurants after cyber attack

A ransomware attack on Yum! Brands, the parent organisation of restaurants including KFC and Pizza Hut, was forced to shut approximately 300 outlets in the UK following a ransomware attack by an unspecified group Continue Reading

Fraudsters and cyber criminals stole more than £4bn in the UK through 2022

The amount of money stolen by fraudsters and cybercriminals in the UK saw a huge increase in 2022 Continue Reading

Mailchimp suffers third breach in 12 months

Email marketing service Mailchimp has suffered its third data breach in a year, but has been praised for being open about its latest attack Continue Reading

UK seeks to ban sharing ‘positive’ Channel crossing videos online

Under UK government amendments to the Online Safety Bill, video footage that shows people crossing the Channel in a ‘positive light’ could be added to a list of illegal content that all tech platforms must proactively prevent from reaching users, while senior managers could face further criminal sanctions Continue Reading

Newham Council rejects use of live facial-recognition tech by police

Live facial-recognition technology should not be used by police in Newham until biometric and anti-discrimination safeguards are in place, according to a motion passed unanimously by the council, but the Met Police and the Home Office have indicated they will not suspend its use Continue Reading

Outdated IT infrastructure poses growing risk to UK Security Vetting

Delays to UKSV’s important work in safeguarding the country’s national security are in part down to a legacy IT estate in dire need of modernisation, says the NAO Continue Reading

Swedish government launches accelerated digitisation plan

The Swedish government has launched a four-year plan which will help to digitally transform the country’s public sector Continue Reading

David Anderson KC to review UK surveillance laws

Home Office commissions independent review of the Investigatory Powers Act, known as the snoopers’ charter. It will include a review of bulk datasets and government access to internet connection records held by phone and internet companies Continue Reading

Oracle and CBI: companies cautious, selective in 2023 IT, business investment

Oracle and the CBI are seeing much the same picture of cautious technology investment of UK businesses in 2023, in the context of long Covid and the energy price inflation crisis Continue Reading

Advisory board goal for Post Office scandal victims to be returned to rightful financial position

The board set up to monitor the compensation scheme for Post Office scandal victims agrees goal of returning them to the financial position they would be in had the scandal never happened Continue Reading