News

Privacy and data protection

• May 11, 2023 11 May'23

  Australia to shore up cyber and digital capabilities in Budget 2023

  Australia is spending more than A$2bn to strengthen cyber resilience, improve digital government services and fuel AI adoption, among other areas, in its latest budget

• May 11, 2023 11 May'23

  Journalists’ confidential communications subject to unlawful spying, court hears

  Campaign group Liberty and the National Union of Journalists tell Court of Appeal the government has not gone far enough to protect confidential journalist information and sources from surveillance

• May 10, 2023 10 May'23

  Black Basta ransomware attack to cost Capita over £15m

  Exceptional costs arising from the March 2023 Black Basta ransomware attack on the systems of outsourcer Capita will be somewhere between £15m and £20m, the organisation says

• May 10, 2023 10 May'23

  Nebulon aims Tripline at ransomware detection in storage

  Tripline claims ransomware detection from samples every 30 seconds and works in conjunction with snapshots to deliver recovery from an attack in four minutes

• May 08, 2023 08 May'23

  Chat control: EU lawyers warn plans to scan encrypted messages for child abuse may be unlawful

  Leaked legal advice warns that European ‘chat control’ proposals to require tech companies to scan private and encrypted messages for child abuse are likely to breach EU law

• May 05, 2023 05 May'23

  Capita pension clients told data may have leaked

  Capita has told trustees of some of the pension funds for which it provides outsourced services that their customer data may have been stolen by the Black Basta ransomware operation

• May 05, 2023 05 May'23

  Santander reports increase in scams and admits fraud head was impersonated

  Santander has reported an increase in impersonation scams, and admitted its own head of fraud was impersonated by a fraudster

• May 04, 2023 04 May'23

  Google debuts passwordless login options for users

  Launch of Google’s passkey service hailed as a great leap forward for passwordless technology

• May 04, 2023 04 May'23

  Inside BlackBerry’s cyber security playbook

  BlackBerry’s president of cyber security discusses the company’s cyber security strategy and what it is doing to deliver an integrated set of capabilities for enterprises

• May 03, 2023 03 May'23

  Cyber Action Plan for Wales launched

  The devolved Welsh government has set out four priorities in an action plan designed to foster cyber resilience, talent and innovation across the country

• May 03, 2023 03 May'23

  TikTok fixes vulnerability that could have exposed user activity data

  A potentially dangerous vulnerability in the TikTok video-sharing platform was discovered by Imperva researchers, and has now been fixed

• May 03, 2023 03 May'23

  Government anti-fraud strategy targets the tech behind the scams

  The UK government’s anti-fraud strategy proposes to make it much harder for criminals to target their victims by cracking down on the exploitation of technology

• May 03, 2023 03 May'23

  US competition watchdog issues generative AI warning

  Generative AI can be used to manipulate people into making harmful decisions, says US Federal Trade Commission in warning to firms building and using AI-powered tools

• May 02, 2023 02 May'23

  Researchers see surge in scam websites linked to coronation

  Scammers and fraudsters continue to take advantage of large public events, with the coronation of King Charles III no exception

• April 28, 2023 28 Apr'23

  Government is playing ‘psychic war’ in battle over end-to-end encryption

  Peers hear that the UK government is being deliberately ambiguous about its plans to require technology companies to scan the content of encrypted messages

• April 27, 2023 27 Apr'23

  Tenable opens playground for generative AI cyber tools

  A set of generative AI cyber tools designed to help security researchers in reverse engineering, debugging and other areas of work have been made available for the community to experiment with

• April 27, 2023 27 Apr'23

  Google Cloud seals bug that could have led to data breaches

  The Asset Key Thief vulnerability gave rise to multiple potential attack scenarios that could have impacted thousands of Google Cloud users, but has now been safely fixed

• April 26, 2023 26 Apr'23

  Police Scotland receive formal notice about cloud system

  Scotland’s biometrics watchdog has issued Police Scotland with an information notice over its deployment of a cloud-based digital evidence system, following disclosure of major data protection concerns by Computer Weekly

• April 25, 2023 25 Apr'23

  How non-fungible tokens can be used to manage health data

  Non-fungible tokens will give patients more ownership and control over their health data and improve its transparency in healthcare research, according to SingHealth clinicians

• April 24, 2023 24 Apr'23

  Most IT staff uncomfortable deploying surveillance tech at work

  The IT teams responsible for deploying and running digital surveillance in workplaces say they are uncomfortable with “extremely common” practice of spying on colleagues, research finds

• April 21, 2023 21 Apr'23

  UK biometrics watchdog questions police cloud deployments

  The UK biometrics commissioner has warned that policing and justice bodies must be able to demonstrate ‘immediately and unequivocally’ that their cloud deployments are lawful

• April 21, 2023 21 Apr'23

  CyberUK 23: New advice on smart city security issued

  The NCSC and key allies have drawn up new guidance to help communities balance the cyber security risks involved with creating smart cities

• April 21, 2023 21 Apr'23

  Prototype cyber tech has revolutionary potential

  The so-called CHERI protection model developed at the University of Cambridge is showing great promise for future cyber security technologies

• April 20, 2023 20 Apr'23

  Online Safety Bill could pose risk to encryption technology used by Ukraine

  CEO of encrypted messaging service Element says Online Safety Bill could pose a risk to the encrypted comms systems used by Ukraine

• April 20, 2023 20 Apr'23

  UK Emergency Alert Test sparks cyber fraud warning

  Fraudsters and scammers are likely to use the upcoming test of the UK's new mobile Emergency Alert system as bait in their attacks, while misinformation and conspiracy theories spread

• April 20, 2023 20 Apr'23

  Capita customer data was stolen in March ransomware attack

  Capita says it has uncovered evidence of data exfiltration from a small proportion of its server estate following a cyber attack at the end of March

• April 19, 2023 19 Apr'23

  CyberUK 23: Ukraine offers masterclass in withstanding cyber war

  Russian cyber activity has seen an unprecedented evolution in scale and pace over the past year, but Ukraine’s resilience has enabled it to mount a masterful response, says the NCSC

• April 19, 2023 19 Apr'23

  Surrey and Sussex police spared fines after recording 200,000 phone calls without people’s knowledge

  Police forces escape potential £1m fines following change of policy by ICO to protect the finances of public sector bodies

• April 19, 2023 19 Apr'23

  CyberUK 23: NCSC launches Cyber Advisor service for SMEs

  The UK’s NCSC has launched an industry assurance scheme designed to address the needs of SMEs, and is calling for potential advisors to step up and help out

• April 19, 2023 19 Apr'23

  CyberUK 23: NCSC CEO calls for collaboration and warns against complacency

  NCSC boss Lindy Cameron kicked off the annual CyberUK conference in Belfast with a plea for collaboration and a warning against complacency

• April 19, 2023 19 Apr'23

  Global finance firms take part in NATO cyber attack simulation

  Global financial services organisations take part in NATO annual event which simulates cyber attacks on critical infrastructure

• April 18, 2023 18 Apr'23

  IT Priorities 2023: Cloud and disaster recovery top storage and backup plans

  Cloud storage still the biggest project planned in data storage in 2023, with disaster recovery the most important area in data protection cited by TechTarget/Computer Weekly survey respondents

• April 18, 2023 18 Apr'23

  CyberUK 23: NCSC conference centres cyber collaboration

  The NCSC’s annual CyberUK conference gets underway in Belfast this week, with collaboration and cooperation high on the agenda

• April 18, 2023 18 Apr'23

  Tech companies and NGOs urge rewrite of Online Safety Bill to protect encrypted comms

  The Online Safety Bill faces amendments in the House of Lords amid concerns that it could weaken the security of end-to-end encrypted communications for UK citizens

• April 18, 2023 18 Apr'23

  UK presses on with post-Brexit data protection reform

  The revised version of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill has had its second reading in Parliament as the government presses on with post-Brexit changes, but critics remain sceptical that the EU will be convinced to maintain the UK's ...

• April 17, 2023 17 Apr'23

  Restaurants hit by IT problems after BlackCat attack on supplier NCR

  Ransomware attack on systems of payments giant causing service outages for restaurants around the world

• April 13, 2023 13 Apr'23

  UK joins key allies to launch secure-by-design guidelines

  The UK has joined international partners in sharing new advice to help technology companies embed security into the product design and development process

• April 13, 2023 13 Apr'23

  Three charged over banking fraud for hire website

  UK authorities have charged three men in connection with the operation of a website that sold social engineering tools to cyber fraudsters

• April 13, 2023 13 Apr'23

  Italy to lift ChatGPT ban subject to new data protection controls

  Italian regulator will lift its ban on OpenAI’s ChatGPT subject to a strict new data protection regime

• April 12, 2023 12 Apr'23

  UK police double down on ‘improved’ facial recognition

  The Met and South Wales Police have doubled down on their use of facial recognition technology after research found improved accuracy in their algorithms when using certain settings, but civil society groups maintain that the tech will still be used...

• April 12, 2023 12 Apr'23

  Okta integrates with Singapore’s national digital ID system

  The integration with Singpass will let Okta customers authenticate consumers using Singapore’s national digital ID system and is expected to expand the company’s reach in regulated industries

• April 11, 2023 11 Apr'23

  Anne Keast-Butler named as new director of GCHQ

  The government has appointed current MI5 deputy director general Anne Keast-Butler to head signals and cyber agency GCHQ

• April 11, 2023 11 Apr'23

  KFC, Pizza Hut data stolen in January ransomware attack

  Yum!, the parent organisation behind KFC and Pizza Hut in the UK, has disclosed that employee data was accessed and exfiltrated in a January 2023 ransomware attack

• April 06, 2023 06 Apr'23

  IBM's Nataraj Nagaratnam on the cyber challenges facing cloud services

  Governments are introducing increasingly prescriptive data protection policies, but with organisations becoming ever more reliant on multiple cloud service platforms for essential business needs, how can they ensure they meet regulatory requirements?

• April 06, 2023 06 Apr'23

  Clop ransomware booms in March as Fortra zero-day pays off for gang

  Backed by the threat actor tracked variously as Gold Tahoe and TA505, the Clop ransomware operation hit new ‘heights’ of activity last month, according to researchers

• April 05, 2023 05 Apr'23

  Cops bust Genesis cyber crime marketplace

  Multinational Operation Cookie Monster takes down Genesis Market, a crucial source of compromised data used by criminals for fraud and other cyber attacks

• April 05, 2023 05 Apr'23

  Italy’s ChatGPT ban: Sober precaution or chilling overreaction?

  Italy’s data protection authority issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT citing data protection concerns and alleged breaches of the GDPR. Is this a reasonable precaution, or a chilling restriction on personal freedoms?

• April 04, 2023 04 Apr'23

  TikTok fined in UK over unlawful use of children’s data

  The ICO has fined TikTok £12.7m for breaches of data protection law, including unlawfully collecting data on children under 13

• April 04, 2023 04 Apr'23

  National Cyber Force carrying out daily hacking operations to disrupt hostile threats

  Government discloses details about the National Cyber Force’s disruption activities against terrorists, organised criminals and nation states – and names first NCF chief as James Babbage

• April 03, 2023 03 Apr'23

  Australia’s media and telecoms sector saw most data breaches in 2022

  The media and telecoms industry accounted for the bulk of stolen credentials in Australia in 2022, underscoring the need to shore up the country’s cyber security posture