News

IT for government and public sector

• July 30, 2024 30 Jul'24

  Government commits at least £540m to financial redress for wrongfully convicted Post Office staff

  Hundreds of eligible former subpostmasters and branch staff are yet to come forward to have convictions overturned, but government hopes new scheme will encourage them to do so

• July 29, 2024 29 Jul'24

  UK government sets up AI action plan unit

  New government has ambitious plans to use AI to grow the economy, and has hired a tech entrepreneur to help guide the strategy

• July 29, 2024 29 Jul'24

  Scam CrowdStrike domains growing in volume

  Hundreds of malicious domains exploiting CrowdStrike’s branding are appearing all over the web in the wake of the 19 July outage. Experts from Akamai share some noteworthy examples, along with guidance on how to avoid getting caught out

• July 29, 2024 29 Jul'24

  CrowdStrike says most Falcon sensors now up and running

  The vast majority of CrowdStrike Falcon sensors affected by a coding error have now been recovered, with a final resolution expected this week

• July 29, 2024 29 Jul'24

  WTO digital trade agreement aims to modernise global commerce

  A digital trade deal negotiated over five years at the World Trade Organization has been signed by 91 countries, laying the groundwork for a new global digital trade regime

• July 29, 2024 29 Jul'24

  UK government invests £106m in five quantum tech hubs

  Five university hubs are receiving funding to support the development of quantum applications that can support healthcare and businesses

• July 26, 2024 26 Jul'24

  Ban predictive policing and facial recognition, says civil society

  A coalition of civil society groups is calling for an outright ban on predictive policing and biometric surveillance in the UK

• July 26, 2024 26 Jul'24

  Vince Cable says the Post Office ‘lied’ to the government over Horizon issues

  In the latest Post Office scandal public inquiry hearings, Vince Cable and Greg Clark reflected on their time as the minister heading the department responsible for the Post Office

• July 25, 2024 25 Jul'24

  North Korean cyber APT targeting nuclear secrets

  Mandiant has upgraded the North Korean threat actor known as Andariel to APT status and warned of coordinated efforts to steal western military IP, including nuclear secrets

• July 25, 2024 25 Jul'24

  India bolsters digital agriculture and space tech in Budget 2024

  India will extend its digital public infrastructure to the agriculture sector and set up a venture capital fund for space startups, among other tech initiatives in its latest Budget

• July 24, 2024 24 Jul'24

  CrowdStrike blames outage on content configuration update

  CrowdStrike publishes the preliminary findings of what will be a lengthy investigation into the root causes of the failed 19 July update that caused Windows computers to crash all over the world

• July 24, 2024 24 Jul'24

  Mimecast to buy insider threat specialist Code42

  Mimecast is to buy fellow human-centred risk experts Code42 for an undisclosed sum to take advantage of its insider threat and data loss protection specialisms

• July 24, 2024 24 Jul'24

  Post Office ‘acted the victim’ and civil servants ‘abandoned their principles’, says former minister

  Former government minister tells inquiry the Post Office always played the victim of subpostmasters that it considered either ‘incompetent’ or ‘criminal’

• July 24, 2024 24 Jul'24

  ICO reprimands Essex school for illegal facial recognition use

  The Information Commissioner’s Office has reprimanded Chelmer Valley High School in Chelmsford for introducing facial recognition and failing to conduct a legally required data protection impact assessment and obtain the explicit consent of students

• July 24, 2024 24 Jul'24

  WhatsApp and Signal messages at risk of surveillance following EncroChat ruling, court hears

  Defence lawyers seek leave to appeal a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that the National Crime Agency lawfully obtained warrants to intercept messages sent over an encrypted phone network

• July 23, 2024 23 Jul'24

  NCA seizes thousands of social media accounts used by people smugglers

  A three-year campaign has seen thousands of social media posts and accounts used to advertise the services of illegal people smugglers taken down

• July 23, 2024 23 Jul'24

  Former minister felt she was fighting department over Post Office controversy

  Former government minister was fighting with Shareholder Executive officials as she probed for information following allegations brought to her by MPs

• July 22, 2024 22 Jul'24

  NCSC: Beware of criminal CrowdStrike opportunists

  Financially motivated cyber criminals are already conducting opportunistic attacks on organisations that leverage the CrowdStrike incident, and more targeted attacks are sure to follow

• July 22, 2024 22 Jul'24

  CrowdStrike chaos shows risks of concentrated ‘big IT’

  The concentration of so much mission-critical technology in the hands of a few large suppliers makes incidents like the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage all the more dangerous

• July 22, 2024 22 Jul'24

  Ed Davey and Jo Swinson ‘handled’ by civil servants in Post Office cover-up, says Sir Alan Bates

  Evidence in public inquiry revealed how ministers in charge of Post Office were left in the dark at a time when campaigners, MPs and journalists were looking for answers

• July 19, 2024 19 Jul'24

  Global Microsoft outage hits NHS GP IT system

  The Emis Web IT system used by more than half of GP practices in the UK is down, following the worldwide Microsoft outage

• July 18, 2024 18 Jul'24

  Lawyers and journalists seeking ‘payback’ over police phone surveillance, claims former detective

  Former Durham detective will be required to give evidence to a tribunal investigating allegations that police unlawfully monitored journalists’ phones

• July 18, 2024 18 Jul'24

  Government trusted ‘abuser’ over the abused on Post Office scandal

  The government referred allegations about subpostmasters’ mistreatment by the Post Office to the alleged abuser itself

• July 18, 2024 18 Jul'24

  Glasgow’s digital strategy highlights digital rights for citizens

  The strategy aims to create organisational change, equipping Glasgow to reap the benefits of digital and protect its citizens’ rights

• July 17, 2024 17 Jul'24

  UK Cyber Bill teases mandatory ransomware reporting

  In the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill introduced in the King's Speech, the UK's new government pledges to give regulators more teeth to ensure compliance with security best practice and to mandate incident reporting

• July 17, 2024 17 Jul'24

  Hackney Council reprimanded over 2020 ransomware attack

  The London Borough of Hackney has been reprimanded by the ICO over a series of failures that led to a devastating cyber attack, but at the same time, the regulator praised the local authority for its response and commitment to making improvements

• July 17, 2024 17 Jul'24

  Police Digital Service CEO Ian Bell resigns as company director following news of staff arrests

  Two weeks after news emerged that two employees of the Police Digital Service had been arrested on suspicion of bribery, fraud and misconduct, Companies House confirms PDS CEO Ian Bell has resigned as company director

• July 17, 2024 17 Jul'24

  Labour government plans new laws around cyber security, data sharing and skills

  The King's Speech outlined the legislative agenda for the new Parliament, including several bills that will impact the tech community

• July 16, 2024 16 Jul'24

  Strategic Defence Review must emphasise cyber security, says industry

  Cyber security leaders say the new government's Strategic Defence Review needs to put digital security front and centre

• July 16, 2024 16 Jul'24

  Fujitsu analyst gave witness statements when more qualified colleagues refused

  Fujitsu employee provided witness statements to courts in cases against subpostmasters despite not understanding the evidence, after qualified IT experts refused

• July 16, 2024 16 Jul'24

  CMA looks deeper into Microsoft’s AI hirings

  Microsoft recently hired two former co-founders of AI specialist Inflection AI, and signed a deal to host the company’s AI model on Azure

• July 16, 2024 16 Jul'24

  Labour government begins to dish out digital responsibilities

  As the new government begins to settle in, ministers with technology remits begin to emerge as DHSC and others declare which ministers will have digital responsibilities

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  NHS Trusts cancelled over 6,000 appointments after Qilin cyber attack

  The two NHS Trusts most heavily impacted by the Qilin ransomware attack on pathology services provider Synnovis have cancelled over 6,000 appointments and procedures in the past five weeks

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  Schools hit with cost hike as free Microsoft licences end

  The A1 Plus academic licence, which gave teachers and pupils access to the Microsoft productivity suite, stops in August

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  DACH education ‘ready for AI’ as parents call for next phase of innovation

  A rallying cry for digital intervention in the sector across the DACH region could set the tone for a continental shift towards more dynamic and intuitive learning in the years to come

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  WHO launches digital health collaboration network

  The World Health Organisation’s network, which includes 53 member states alongside data and digital health partners, will tackle digital transformation issues in healthcare

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  Civil servant said subpostmasters’ threat of legal action was ‘sabre-rattling’

  Post Office scandal public inquiry hears damning evidence capping off a bad week for the reputation of high-profile civil servants

• July 11, 2024 11 Jul'24

  Life sciences, medtech and the NHS must marry, says health secretary

  Health secretary Wes Streeting wants the UK to be an international powerhouse for life sciences and medtech, and plans to turn the Department for Health and Social Care into a ‘public growth department’

• July 11, 2024 11 Jul'24

  ITER workshop highlights the role of computing technology in nuclear fusion

  One of the themes from the private sector workshop run in France this May is that information technology remains a key enabler for nuclear fusion

• July 11, 2024 11 Jul'24

  Dutch research firm TNO pictures the SOC of the future

  In only a few years, security operations centres will have a different design and layout, and far fewer will remain

• July 11, 2024 11 Jul'24

  Challenges of deploying AI to run public services more efficiently

  A report from an organisation headed by former prime minister Tony Blair has set an AI challenge for the Labour government

• July 11, 2024 11 Jul'24

  GDS appoints Christine Bellamy as CEO

  The former head of Gov.uk has taken over as CEO of the Government Digital Service following the departure of Tom Read in June

• July 10, 2024 10 Jul'24

  Civil servant was lone voice on Post Office board to query legal plan that blew taxpayers' cash

  Government representative felt he was 'in a minority of one' on the Post Office board of directors in questioning the handling of a High Court battle with subpostmasters that cost £100m

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Hyper-V zero-day stands out on a busy Patch Tuesday

  Microsoft has fixed almost 140 vulnerabilities in its latest monthly update, with a Hyper-V zero-day singled out for urgent attention

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Chinese spies target vulnerable home office kit to run cyber attacks

  China’s APT40 is ramping up targeting of victims using vulnerable small and home office networking kit as command and control infrastructure, according to an international alert

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Government left monitoring of Post Office to ‘luck’

  If the Post Office board failed to spot bad faith within its management, it would be down to ‘luck’ for the government to find out

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Lessons from war: How Israel is fighting Iranian state-backed hacking

  The general director of the Israel National Cyber Directorate talks about the rise in cyber attacks and what lessons the country has gleaned to defend against hacking from foreign parties

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Room to grow in UK for Tata Consultancy Services after half a century

  Indian-headquartered IT giant has built a large UK footprint as part of its global network, a commitment which is helping it increase its business in the UK’s public sector

• July 09, 2024 09 Jul'24

  Revamped DSIT to transform digital public services, says government

  The incoming government sets out preliminary plans to conduct a major revamp and relaunch of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

• July 08, 2024 08 Jul'24

  Synnovis attack highlights degraded, outdated state of NHS IT

  More cyber attacks against the health service are likely, and will succeed if something isn’t done to address the increasingly elderly NHS IT estate, experts are warning