News

IT governance

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Mimecast breach was work of SolarWinds attackers

  Mimecast’s investigation into a January 2021 breach of its systems turns up evidence that the culprit was the same group that targeted SolarWinds in December

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Emotet botnet goes offline as cops seize servers

  The Emotet botnet has been disrupted and knocked offline after a major international effort by law enforcement

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Grindr complaint results in €9.6m GDPR fine

  Norway’s data protection authority plans to apply a fine totalling 10% of LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr’s revenues over its data sharing practices

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Emergency Apple updates patch exploited zero-days

  Three vulnerabilities could give attackers full control of their target Apple devices, and must be patched immediately

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Conservatives broke data law to racially profile millions

  The Conservative Party acted illegally in collecting data that inferred voters’ ethnicity and religious background, a Select Committee has heard

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  North Korean state attacks legitimate security researchers

  Threat researchers specialising in vulnerability research and development appear to be being targeted by a North Korean state-backed group

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  ICO extends commissioner Denham’s term of office

  Extension of Elizabeth Denham’s tenure as information commissioner will give the government more time to appoint her successor

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Cyber fraud a national security issue, says Rusi report

  A report from the Rusi think tank calls for fresh approaches to how we think about fighting fraud

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  ICO resumes adtech investigation

  The UK Information Commissioner’s Office was criticised for ending its investigation into alleged malpractice in advertising technology, but has now resumed its probe

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  Sepa data leaks as agency resists ransom demands

  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is resisting extortion demands from a ransomware gang, but has suffered a data leak in retaliation

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  Google threatens to cut off Australia

  Google’s threat to end its Australian Search operation comes in the face of new legislation that would force it to pay media publishers for news content

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Hackney Council tenders for cyber security upgrade

  Suppliers are being invited to tender for enhanced cyber security capabilities at ransomware victim Hackney Council

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Immigration exemption in data protection law faces further legal challenge

  Human rights groups set to take legal challenge against immigration exemption to Court of Appeal on the basis that everyone, regardless of their nationality or residence, should have their fundamental rights and freedoms protected as stated in the ...

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Two-thirds of CISOs say they’ll be cyber attack victims this year

  Security professionals are ever alert to the threats they face, but some still seem to think it is unlikely they will be attacked

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Interview: Tony Porter, chief privacy officer, Corsight AI

  Tony Porter speaks to Computer Weekly about the changes in facial-recognition during his time as surveillance camera commissioner, the ethics of using the technology, and his new role as chief privacy officer at Corsight AI

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Incompetent cyber criminals leak data in opsec failure

  Even cyber criminals need to pay attention to their information security posture, as this cautionary tale uncovered by Check Point reveals

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  Should I be worried about MFA-bypassing pass-the-cookie attacks?

  Malicious actors bypassed multi-factor authentication using so-called pass-the-cookie attacks, but how worrying is this and what is the risk to organisations?

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  Malwarebytes also hit by SolarWinds attackers

  The nation state group that attacked SolarWinds in December got inside Malwarebytes by exploiting privileged access to its Microsoft Office 365 tenant, the firm reveals

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  CIOs blame siloed IT teams and tools for misalignment

  The inability of teams to see a single version of the truth is leading to a lot of time wasting among IT departments and businesses

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Value of GDPR fines shows dramatic increase in 2020

  European regulators imposed almost €160m worth of fines during the past 12 months, a substantial rise

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Click fraud levels reach new heights in pandemic

  Small companies risk losing £10,000 a year, and enterprises as much as £520,000, to cyber criminals as click fraud volumes spike

• January 19, 2021 19 Jan'21

  Criminals fiddled stolen Covid-19 vaccine data to damage trust

  Malicious actors manipulated stolen Covid-19 data in a way clearly intended to damage public trust in vaccines, says the EMA

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  MoD reports 18% rise in data loss incidents

  The Ministry of Defence reported more than five hundred data security incidents in 2019-20, with seven serious enough to warrant disclosure to the ICO

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  150,000 records accidentally wiped from police systems

  Home Office claims data wiped from national police systems only relates to people who have never been convicted of a crime or had further police action taken against them following an arrest

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  US cyber security agencies get $9bn in Biden plan

  New funding proposals come as US government reels from the impact of the December 2020 SolarWinds attack

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  Coalition proposes secure standard model for Covid-19 passports

  Vaccination Credential Initiative is working to ensure that people vaccinated against Covid-19 can access their records in a secure, verifiable and privacy-preserving way

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  All EU states can take data protection cases against Facebook, says EU court

  An opinion from the European Court of Justice has the potential to lead to a flood of privacy complaints against Facebook if upheld

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Experian calls for less bureaucratic data regulations

  Open banking requires cross-industry collaboration, but sharing personal data requires explicit consent, which can become a bottleneck

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Old, on-premise systems targeted in Hackney ransomware attack

  Council reveals some more insight into how the Pysa ransomware gang infiltrated its systems by exploiting legacy technology

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Unforeseen consequences of new technologies put UK at risk

  Lords committee told that the risks associated with various emerging digital technologies must be assessed together, with input from UK citizens, if the government is to avoid ‘siloisation’ of fundamentally interconnected problems

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Court to rule on Facebook data sharing after Schrems drops legal challenge against Irish regulator

  Irish High Court says it will issue a judgment as soon as possible over a draft decision by Ireland’s data protection commissioner to order Facebook to stop the transfer of data about EU citizens to datacentres in the US

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  World’s largest dark web market disrupted in major police operation

  Coordinated international operation including Europol and the UK’s National Crime Agency has successfully taken DarkMarket offline

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Covid-19 immunity passport tests to begin in UK

  A Covid-19 immunity and vaccination passport developed by two UK firms and backed by Innovate UK has entered the live testing phase

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Stolen Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine data leaked

  Data dump understood to include screenshots of emails, peer review information, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Critical zero-day features in first Patch Tuesday of 2021

  Microsoft releases fixes for 84 bugs on the first Patch Tuesday of 2021, including a critical zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Defender

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Mimecast latest security firm to be compromised

  Users of a specific Mimecast certificate used to authenticate services to Microsoft Office 365 may be at risk of compromise in an attack that may relate to the ongoing SolarWinds incident

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  New SolarWinds CEO sets out rescue plan

  Customers can expect to see more regular and thorough checks on SolarWinds products, alongside greater engagement with the security community

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Kaspersky claims link between Solorigate and Kazuar backdoors

  Researchers say they have found specific code similarities between the Solorigate/Sunburst malware and the Kazuar backdoor, suggesting some relationship

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Tech sector reacts to Trump social media bans

  Facebook, Instagram and others moved to limit US president’s social media access after the violence in Washington DC, but experts have condemned them for acting too slowly, while disinformation about the riots persists

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Brexit deal grants UK temporary data adequacy

  The EU-UK Brexit deal has granted the UK temporary data adequacy to allow for the continued flow of data across borders, but the agreement has divided data protection experts

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Which? online banking investigation reveals ‘worrying gaps’ in security

  Consumer rights organisation has ranked the security of UK online current account providers

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Biden picks cyber veteran to reinvigorate security response

  Appointment of career intelligence operative Anne Neuberger signals refreshed security approach for the US government under Joe Biden's administration

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Hackney Council data leaked by Pysa ransomware gang

  Council data stolen in October is leaked online in a double extortion attack

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Robust member administration system indispensable for Dutch Coeliac Society

  Organisation had to find a dedicated member administration system to support existing members, new members and countless volunteers

• January 06, 2021 06 Jan'21

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to remain in prison despite winning extradition battle

  Judge cites Assange’s support of NSA whistleblower as one of the reasons for him being at high risk of absconding. He will remain in Belmarsh prison until the US government completes its appeal

• January 06, 2021 06 Jan'21

  SolarWinds attack almost certainly work of Russian spooks

  Investigations into the far-reaching SolarWinds Solorigate attack did not let up during the holidays

• January 04, 2021 04 Jan'21

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to face charges in US, court rules

  Court rules it would be oppressive to send Julian Assange to the US to face trial after finding he is at high risk of suicide. US government says it will appeal

• January 04, 2021 04 Jan'21

  Journalists’ FOI bids stayed as court reconsiders freedom of information rights of people outside UK

  Tribunal questions whether people without a British passport or Britons living overseas are eligible to use the UK’s Freedom of Information Act

• December 31, 2020 31 Dec'20

  Top 10 investigations and national security stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 investigations and national security stories of 2020

• December 31, 2020 31 Dec'20

  Top 10 technology and ethics stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 technology and ethics stories of 2020