IT news in your industry sector

One Login digital identity project makes headway

Government services are lining up to work with the GDS on its One Login digital identity system, according to its director of digital identity, Natalie Jones Continue Reading

Making her mark in financial technology

Archana Manjunatha’s career in financial technology took her to the trading floors in India, where she learned the ropes of futures and options trading and the back offices of some of the world’s largest banks Continue Reading

Criminal 0ktapus spoofed IAM firm in massive phishing attack

Researchers at Group-IB have published research on a major phishing campaign that ensnared victims at the likes of Cloudflare and Twilio Continue Reading

Adaptive RedAlert, Monster ransomwares go cross-platform

Kaspersky researchers have shared new intelligence on two emergent cyber criminal groups that have adapted their ransomwares to target different operating systems at the same time Continue Reading

Millions of Plex users may be at risk in password breach

Up to half of Plex’s 30 million users may have had their personal data stolen by an unknown threat actor Continue Reading

CW Nordics: Norway struggles to keep up with demand for tech specialists

The growing importance of IT in all industries, along with a shortage in skills, make for an excellent high-tech job market for candidates in Norway. Read how recruiters are struggling to keep up with demand. Also read how the Danish government encourages research in strategic fields to attract tech companies. Continue Reading

Security pros fret about stress and promotion over cyber attacks

CIISec’s annual report on the state of the security profession reveals some home truths for security leaders Continue Reading

LockBit 3.0 cements dominance of ransomware ecosystem

Ransomware attacks were up 47% in July compared with the previous month, according to the latest threat data from NCC Group, with the LockBit family largely to blame Continue Reading

Most CISOs think they’ve been attacked by a nation state

Most organisations have made changes to their cyber strategies and policies following Russia’s invasion, and almost two-thirds suspect they have been directly targeted or impacted by a nation-state cyber attack Continue Reading

Alleged Twitter security failings spell trouble ahead

Twitter’s former security head, Peiter Zatko, has alleged a number of serious cyber failures at the social media platform, raising the spectre of investigations and sanctions Continue Reading

Cloud storage TCO: Key pitfalls and how to avoid them

Cloud’s flexibility is part of the attraction, but it can also lead to costs that spiral. We look at key elements in cloud TCO and how to intelligently make use of the cloud Continue Reading

Home Office announces Scale-up visa for fast-growth firms

Scale-up visa launched to help high-growth businesses employ talent from overseas, but sponsorship requirements could undermine effectiveness Continue Reading

Bfloat16: What it is and how it impacts storage

Bfloat16 is an emerging way to handle very large numbers, developed by Google for its machine and neural learning and prediction. We look at what it means for IT and storage Continue Reading

NCSC shares cyber guidance for large infrastructure builds

Balfour Beatty and McAlpine are among the large construction firms to have input into latest NCSC guidance for ensuring the security of major infrastructure projects Continue Reading

Farming tech projects get £16.5m in government funding

Projects receiving funding through latest round of farming innovation programme include tech to improve fruit farming and the use of artificial intelligence to improve pigs’ welfare Continue Reading

ODI: Smart data promise could founder against paywalls

The Open Data Institute’s Mahlet Zimeta examines the government’s smart data plan, which could boost competition and empower the public, but needs to be set up to allow rapid creation of new markets without barriers Continue Reading

Merlin and the magic of tech

The theme park giant faced a huge challenge during Covid with its venues closed, but digital tech came to the rescue, as Merlin CTO Lee Cowie explains. Continue Reading

How digital technology rescued Merlin

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the CTO of Merlin Entertainments – operator of Legoland, Sea Life and Alton Towers – to find out how digital saved the company when Covid shut all its theme parks. We look at how software and data analytics can help to track – and reduce – greenhouse gas emissions. And Southern Water explains how data helps to support its most vulnerable customers. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Google Cloud and Singapore government team up on AI

Singapore’s National AI office will tap Google Cloud’s expertise in artificial intelligence to build artificial intelligence applications and train public sector officers on AI Continue Reading

Kaspersky threat data added to Microsoft Sentinel service

Microsoft and Kaspersky have agreed a collaboration to integrate Kaspersky’s threat data feeds into Microsoft’s cloud-native SIEM/SOAR service Continue Reading

Lloyd’s to end insurance coverage for state cyber attacks

Lloyd’s of London has instructed its members to exclude nation state cyber attacks from insurance policies beginning in 2023, saying they pose unacceptable levels of risk Continue Reading

Google employees demand end to collection of abortion data

In the wake of the US Supreme Court rolling back abortion rights, Google employees are calling on the company to stop collecting abortion-related data, so that it can never be shared with police Continue Reading

Cozy Bear targets MS 365 environments with new tactics

Cozy Bear, or APT29, is trying out new tricks as it seeks access to its targets’ Microsoft 365 environments Continue Reading

Data sharing: How can we make sure the UK is a world leader?

The UK government risks missing out on the benefits and opportunities laid out in its National Data Strategy – and could lose international competitiveness as a result Continue Reading

LexisNexis sued by immigration advocates over data practices

Four immigration advocacy groups launch lawsuit in Illinois alleging data broker’s collection, aggregation and sale of people’s personal data, including non-public information, to corporations and government bodies Continue Reading

Growing MFA use spurs ‘pass-the-cookie’ attacks

The exploitation of stolen session cookies by cyber criminals is once again back on the agenda, thanks to the growing popularity of multifactor authentication tools Continue Reading

It takes a breach to force boards to take notice of cyber, says UK government

Too often, it takes a major incident for business leadership to pay attention to cyber issues, according to a government-commissioned study of victims Continue Reading

Contactless accounted for one-third of all payments made in the UK in 2021, research shows

Latest data from finance industry body reveals how the payments market is bouncing back after the pandemic Continue Reading

GPS tagging of migrants breaches UK data protection law, says Privacy International complaint

Privacy group files complaints with Information Commissioner’s Office and Forensic Science Regulator over Home Office’s GPS monitoring of migrants Continue Reading

CTO interview: Steve Otto, CTO, The R&A

The Open Championship was fully back in 2022 after Covid, and back at golf’s spiritual home of St Andrews – and it was an opportunity for the club’s CTO to reflect on where technology will take the sport next Continue Reading

The Turing Trust receives first batch of donated Govia Thameslink computers

Train operator plans to donate 600 computers to the charity, which will refurbish them and send them to schools in Malawi Continue Reading

Cyber security accelerator launches in Greater Manchester

Accelerator will add to Manchester’s growing cyber security ecosystem, which already includes several tech unicorns, arms companies and the offices of GCHQ Continue Reading

Older customers prefer phone calls to chatbots

Businesses are increasingly adopting customer-facing digital technologies, but the older generation are not so keen to embrace tech Continue Reading

South Staffs Water is victim of botched Clop attack

South Staffordshire Water moves to reassure customers that their supplies remain safe after its attackers screw up their initial assault Continue Reading

Why organisations need to harmonise their CIO and CISO roles

Unless properly managed, conflicting responsibilities between the chief information officer and the chief information security officer can cause project delays and budget overruns, says Netskope’s Mike Anderson Continue Reading

DWP looks to hire new CDIO

Department is on the hunt for a chief digital and information officer to lead on its digital agenda, offering up to £200,000 pa for the role Continue Reading

Lawyers and journalists sue CIA and Mike Pompeo over Assange surveillance claims

CIA and its former director sued over allegations that they authorised unlawful spying on US citizens when they visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London Continue Reading

How clean data helps Southern Water identify vulnerable customers

Escalating prices means households around the country are having to tighten spending, with many struggling to pay their bills. Water4All, a consortium led by Southern Water, is using data to identify low-income and vulnerable households so they can be better supported Continue Reading

Lightbits offers NVMe-over-TCP at 5x less than NVMe-over-FC et al

Lightbits builds NVMe-overTCP SAN clusters for Linux servers with Intel cards that accelerate network processing to give millions of IOPS with storage for public and private clouds Continue Reading

Royal Mint turns to Circular Computing for remanufactured Lenovo laptops

BSI Kitemark for laptops supplied by Circular Computing intended to certify remanufactured products that are ‘as good as’ brand new devices Continue Reading

Heineken puts employees in charge of their own careers with new HR system

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Department of Health investigates bias in medical devices and algorithms

The government has launched a review to look at the problem of discrimination in medical devices and decision-making software Continue Reading

UK Amazon workers stage series of wildcat strikes over pay offers

Amazon warehouse workers across the UK have organised a series of spontaneous strike actions after the e-commerce giant’s management offered them pay rises between 35p and 50p Continue Reading

Online Safety Bill ‘not fit for purpose’, say tech experts

IT specialists lack confidence that legislation compelling tech firms to tackle online harms will work as intended, with only a small minority believing ‘harmful but legal’ content can be effectively and proportionately policed by internet platforms Continue Reading

Cisco averts cyber disaster after successful phishing attack

A potentially serious cyber attack on Cisco’s systems that began after a threat actor successfully exploited an employee’s carelessly secured credentials was thwarted without major damage Continue Reading

NHS may take a month to recover from supply chain attack

Ransomware attack victim Advanced warns its NHS customers they could be waiting until early September to fully recover their operations Continue Reading

Online retail sales see year-on-year drop of 2.3% in July 2022

Despite another year-on-year drop in online retail sales in July, the fall is smaller than those seen in previous months of 2022 as online sales decline slows Continue Reading

Nokia on track to modernise Western Australia rail communications

Leading comms tech provider to upgrade Public Transport Authority of Western Australia’s railway communications system with private wireless and mission-critical IP/MPLS covering 250km of railway track and tunnels in project including designing, building and maintenance Continue Reading

Increase in UK startups scaling to exit, but half still struggle

Despite more startups scaling to the point of exit than ever before, half are still stuck in low growth stages – particularly those working with emerging technologies Continue Reading

Microsoft fixes two-year-old MSDT vulnerability in August update

August’s Patch Tuesday drop fixes more than 120 CVEs, including another MSDT RCE zero-day that is being actively exploited. Continue Reading

Waterstones’ supply chain disrupted in Blue Yonder implementation

Bookseller Waterstones is recovering from the effects of a Blue Yonder implementation that has seen authors and readers up in arms Continue Reading

‘Coopetition’ a growing trend among ransomware gangs

Sophos shares data from its new X-Ops unit at Black Hat in Las Vegas, revealing a growing number of ransomware victims being attacked by multiple gangs at the same time Continue Reading

UK to surveil convicted migrants with facial recognition

A Home Office scheme to biometrically scan the faces of convicted migrants who have already carried out punishments has come under fire from privacy and human rights groups for being discriminatory Continue Reading

HS2 sets aside £9.5m to cover cost of IR35 non-compliance

HS2 has become the latest public sector entity to have fallen foul of the IR35 rules, with its accounts confirming that it is anticipating a tax bill of £9.5m for failing to assess the status of contractors provided to it by a third party Continue Reading

NHS recovering key services after attack on supplier

Incident at software provider Advanced took out multiple NHS services before the weekend, including the 111 advice service Continue Reading

NAO guide for senior government leaders flags barriers to better data use

A National Audit Office guide for government chiefs on improving data use points to difficulties in achieving data sharing benefits and laments variability in cross-government data quality Continue Reading

CIO interview: Stephen Booth, CIO, Coventry University

After more than 20 years at the university, the CIO is still taking on new responsibilities – including his team becoming a commercial entity and acquiring its own software Continue Reading

Reliance on PSN may have exacerbated cyber attack impact

As it seeks a new supplier to reinvigorate the migration away from the Public Services Network, the Cabinet Office says relying on the legacy network may be putting public sector bodies at heightened risk in cyber attacks Continue Reading

Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops

We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading

UK has biggest card fraud problem in Europe

Social Market Foundation calls on the UK to get a grip on its huge problem with bank card fraud in Europe Continue Reading

SBRC to administer NCSC training across Scotland

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre has been awarded a £500,000 contract to extend cyber resilience training across more than 250 at-risk organisations Continue Reading

Financial services regulator opens digital delivery centre in Leeds

The Financial Conduct Authority is increasing the number of tech experts in its workforce through a new digital delivery centre in Leeds Continue Reading

Spyware activity particularly impactful in July

After a quiet June, vulnerability exploitation ramped up in July, with intrusions linked to spyware seeing unusually high volumes of activity, according to a report Continue Reading

Financial Ombudsman Service mining for gold in cloud HR and finance

The Financial Ombudsman Service is reaping the benefits of the cloud-based human resources and finance system it implemented last year Continue Reading

Reimagining ethical digital technology

With ever-increasing digitisation leading to greater dependence on a range of digital technologies, enterprises need to urgently look at how they can incorporate ethical and social considerations into the tech they develop Continue Reading

New EU due diligence law needs amending to stop tech sector abuse

European corporate due diligence directive seeking to transform how companies approach their human rights and environmental risk is welcome, but without further changes, it will fail to effectively curb tech firms’ harmful practices, claims international non-profit Continue Reading

More than 60% of world population will use digital wallets by 2026

Global take-up of digital wallets will accelerate over the next four years, driven by ‘super apps’ and QR code-based payments Continue Reading

Finnish AI Region drives digital growth in small businesses

Helsinki-based SMEs are being offered support and resources to help them get the best out of artificial intelligence technology to improve their operations and create services to sell Continue Reading

IT Sustainability Think Tank: How collaboration and partnerships enable a circular economy

It takes a village to build a credible and robust IT sustainability strategy, so who should enterprise leaders be collaborating with to make their organisation’s green IT goals a reality? Continue Reading

DrayTek patches SOHO router bug that left thousands exposed

Network hardware supplier has fixed an unauthenticated RCE vulnerability in multiple routers in its Vigor line, after being alerted by Trellix researchers Continue Reading

UK safety tech sector sees strong revenue and employment growth

Safety tech is now one of the fastest-growing sectors in the UK tech industry, with jumps in revenue, investment and employment Continue Reading

Retail’s IT talent search intensifies

Retailers from different sectors are on the hunt to fill similar IT job roles, but are all finding different ways to source the sought-after talent. Continue Reading

Post Office attacked subpostmasters who questioned Horizon, say victims

When the Post Office’s lie about the Horizon system failed to silence subpostmaster critics, the organisation took more extreme measures, say victims of the scandal. Continue Reading

How to create a datacentre capacity plan

In this week’s Computer Weekly, planning datacentre capacity is a growing challenge – we ask the experts for the latest best practice. Victims of the Post Office IT scandal explain why they think they were targeted for speaking out. And we look at the digital skills gap in retail and find out how employers can source talent. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Mapping out the rise in checkout-free shopping

There has been a boom in the number of checkout-free stores globally, but will that growth continue and which retailers are interested? Continue Reading

Estonia is building AI Gov Stack

Data scientists in Baltic nation are creating a repository of software code that provides building blocks for digital services Continue Reading

IPA revises review of HMRC’s £300m datacentre migration

Infrastructure and Project Authority’s annual report ranks HMRC’s £300m datacentre migration as “unachievable”, but – ahead of publication – it appears the organisation has had a change of heart Continue Reading

Luxembourg taps into innovation for better government tech

With a diverse population and a digital inclusion and open innovation strategy, Luxembourg has developed a way of using technology to improve government services Continue Reading

Green IT, nominate top tech women – Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast

Caroline Donnelly, Clare McDonald and Brian McKenna discuss the CW IT sustainability think-tank, the launch of the Most Influential Women in UK Technology 2022 list, and Lambeth Council in the cloud Continue Reading

Austrian data firm accused of selling malware, conducting cyber attacks

Microsoft has accused DSIRF, an Austrian data services firm, of involvement in a string of cyber attacks Continue Reading

How TCS is supporting Australia’s electricity market settlement

Tata Consultancy Services worked with the Australian Energy Market Operator to build a new system that speeds up electricity market settlement Continue Reading

Artificial intelligence to reduce waiting list for neurology appointments

The Walton Centre is working with Tata Consultancy Services to apply digital technology to its operation, starting with a time-saving AI chatbot Continue Reading

H0lyGh0st ransomware gang faces challenges, but still a threat

Digital Shadows reports on the recently identified H0lyGh0st ransomware outfit, a new threat actor operating out of North Korea that faces some clear challenges, but is nevertheless still a live threat Continue Reading

NCSC startups scheme turns focus to operational technology, SME security

NCSC for Startups initiative turns its focus to supporting innovation around securing operational technology and addressing the challenges facing small businesses Continue Reading

Home Office selects CGI as strategic delivery partner

IT services supplier will act as strategic delivery partner for the Home Office’s plans to modernise and join up UK law enforcement’s digital capabilities Continue Reading

Cyber criminals pivot away from macros as Microsoft changes bite

As Microsoft resumes blocking macros by default in its Office application suite, reversing a temporary reversal, analysis from Proofpoint suggests the action has had a remarkable effect Continue Reading

Hibs push for the backup premier league with Acronis

Hibernian FC signs Acronis to get top division data protection and make the most of ticketing information and match footage as it tries to gain more value from the data it holds Continue Reading

Teams in Grenoble work on 6G breakthrough technology

Even as 5G networks are being rolled out, new requirements are driving scientists, and engineers in Europe are back to the lab to start developing 6G Continue Reading

The verdict is Pure as Scottish prosecutor upgrades high-end storage

Scotland’s prosecution service saw disk drives in the dock every week with EMC legacy storage. Now it’s got Pure all-flash and has turned over an (Evergreen) new leaf Continue Reading

Ocado revenue drops despite distribution centre successes

Ocado has spent the past six months rolling out new customer fulfilment centres and signing partners for its smart platform, but the cost-of-living crisis still sees revenue taking a hit Continue Reading

Government slammed for slow response to IR35-related consultation on zero-rights employees

The government has taken four years to publish its response to a three-month consultation on whether employment status and tax laws should be more closely aligned, and concluded that now is not the right time to make any changes Continue Reading

Consumers left out of pocket as security costs soar

As the average cost of a security incident reaches an all-time high of nearly $4.5m, an IBM Security study reveals how these costs are being passed on to ordinary people Continue Reading

Retail software firm PrestaShop warns users about SQL injection attacks

Open source e-commerce platform PrestaShop warns thousands of small retailers that their customers’ credit card details may be at risk of compromise Continue Reading

Cyber security training ‘boring’ and largely ignored

Two-thirds of employees don’t bother to pay attention to cyber security training – and the fault does not lie with them Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Don’t rely on insurance alone

Cyber insurance is a useful addition to the cyber protection toolbox. However, it cannot be regarded as a replacement for the controls that should be in operation, says Turnkey Consulting’s Tom Venables Continue Reading

Secret court asked to quash a decade of MI5 surveillance warrants following ‘systemic breaches’

The culture at MI5 was to ‘prioritise’ missions ‘over everything else’, including compliance with safeguards designed to protect the public, the UK’s most secret court heard yesterday Continue Reading

No More Ransom initiative helps 1.5 million people in six years

One and a half million people have now taken advantage of free ransomware decryption tools offered by a joint European project Continue Reading

Post Office attacked subpostmasters who questioned Horizon, say victims

When the Post Office’s lie about the Horizon system failed to silence subpostmaster critics, it took more extreme measures, say victims of the scandal Continue Reading

Meta publishes first-ever human rights report

Meta details its approach to protecting and promoting human rights, but civil society groups say the company has failed to grapple with the human rights risks associated with its own business model Continue Reading

Ducktail infostealer targets Facebook Business users

Newly uncovered Ducktail operation targets individuals with access to Facebook Business service and tries to steal their accounts Continue Reading