News

Privacy and data protection

• February 19, 2021 19 Feb'21

  Biden will act on cyber security to fix SolarWinds mess

  US will take action to modernise its defences in the wake of the SolarWinds attack, says US government cyber lead Anne Neuberger

• February 18, 2021 18 Feb'21

  Swedish police fined for unlawful use of facial-recognition app

  Sweden’s data watchdog has found that Swedish police failed to conduct the data protection checks required by law before using controversial facial-recognition tool

• February 18, 2021 18 Feb'21

  City of Helsinki adopts MyData principles to improve digital services

  Principles on the use of personal data for the benefit of society will guide Finnish capital’s ambitious digital plans

• February 18, 2021 18 Feb'21

  2020 a record year for cyber, thanks to Covid

  The UK’s cyber industry now employs close to 50,000 people and contributes billions to the economy

• February 18, 2021 18 Feb'21

  Assessing UK law enforcement data adequacy

  Data protection experts discuss the consequences of achieving data adequacy between the UK and EU for the UK’s intelligence services and criminal justice sector

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  North Korean Lazarus Group hackers indicted in US

  Charges filed relate to Lazarus Group’s long-running cyber crime spree, including financial theft and extortion, WannaCry malware and the cyber attack on Sony Pictures

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  Egregor ransomware arrests confirmed

  Authorities confirm that they have arrested an undisclosed number of cyber criminals associated with the Egregor ransomware

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  Law firm and cyber criminals clash over source of stolen data

  Cyber attack victim Jones Day says its data was stolen in a supply chain attack, but the gang holding it to ransom disagrees

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  North Korea accused of Pfizer Covid vaccine cyber attack

  South Korean intelligence pins a recent attack on Pfizer, targeting information on coronavirus vaccines, on its neighbour

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  Central government should promote data policy compliance, say civil servants

  Most civil servants want the government to gain additional powers to promote data policy compliance to ensure better use of data, according to research

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  Post Office to offer digital ID services to customers

  Post Office partnership with Yoti is intended to expand customer choice as to how people prove their identity when accessing services

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  NCSC recognises UK’s top cyber schools

  National Cyber Security Centre CyberFirst Schools initiative has handed out 14 gold, silver and bronze awards recognising excellence in cyber security teaching

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  Government to impose new digital identity system across all Gov.uk services

  Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove writes to Whitehall departments mandating the use of a new digital identity system that will allow citizens to be tracked across the Gov.uk website

• February 12, 2021 12 Feb'21

  UK border surveillance regime highly privatised, says Privacy International

  Research from Privacy International raises concerns about the deep involvement of technology companies in the development and deployment of various technologies throughout the UK’s border regime, along with the lack of scrutiny they receive

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Hacked Finnish therapy business collapses

  Vastaamo, the Finnish psychotherapy centre whose patients were blackmailed by a cyber criminal gang, has filed for bankruptcy

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Government launches digital identity trust framework

  The government’s draft framework, which aims to set out rules for the use of digital identities, will be tested with industries, services, users and organisations ahead of a final version being published

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Singtel falls prey to supply chain attack

  The Singapore telco reveals that its Accellion file sharing system was illegally hacked in a supply chain attack

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  Dating app users warned to watch out for scammers

  A vast amount of money was lost to romance scammers last year, and with millions of people isolated in lockdown the problem is getting worse, according to a report

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  HelloKitty almost certainly behind CD Projekt ransomware attack

  Theories that the cyber attack on a high-profile gaming studio was orchestrated by players who are disappointed in a videogame are likely wide of the mark, according to analysis

• February 10, 2021 10 Feb'21

  Sim-swapping crooks targeted celebrities, influencers

  Eight arrests have been made in England and Scotland in connection with a series of Sim-swapping attacks targeting high-profile victims

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Facebook sued for data-sharing practices with third parties

  Data protection claim filed in London against social media giant for its alleged failure to give at least one million users in England and Wales meaningful control over their personal data

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Government launches review of use of health data for research

  The review, which will be led by Ben Goldacre, will look at home-efficient and safe use of health data for research and analysis

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Data breaches are a ticking timebomb for consumers

  Damage from data breaches goes far beyond the impact to the target organisation – an obvious fact that is too often overlooked, says F-Secure

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Cyberpunk 2077 developer refuses to pay up after ransomware attack

  Polish video game developer CD Projekt has released details of a ransomware attack on its systems

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  NHS reports fewer phishing emails in 2020

  The NHSmail email service saw a steady decline in suspected phishing emails during the course of 2020

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Data of thousands of Dutch citizens leaked from government Covid-19 systems

  Weak access controls and outdated systems blamed for leaking of the personal details of thousands of Dutch citizens tested for Covid-19

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  EncroChat: Appeal court finds ‘digital phone tapping’ admissible in criminal trials

  Appeal Court decides EncroChat-encrypted phone records can be used in criminal trials. Critics say the decision means phone tapping no longer has a ‘clear meaning in the digital age’

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Google Chrome update to patch serious zero-day

  A serious heap buffer overflow vulnerability means Google Chrome users should patch their browsers as soon as possible

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Financial regulatory body bombarded with malicious emails

  New disclosures reveal the FCA’s systems bounced almost a quarter of a million malicious emails in a three-month period

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Security firm Stormshield loses source code in cyber attack

  Source code from two products developed by French cyber security firm was compromised in a December 2020 incident

• February 05, 2021 05 Feb'21

  Denmark and Sweden to issue digital vaccine certificates

  Sweden and Denmark announce plans to develop digital certificates that prove people have been vaccinated against Covid-19

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  Woodland Trust hit by cyber attack in December

  Conservation charity is investigating what it describes as a ‘sophisticated’ cyber attack but has waited nearly two months to inform its members

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  Fraud and cyber crime still vastly under-reported

  The scale of digitally enabled crime in the UK is dramatically under-reported, new statistics indicate

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  CDEI: Local government data use must keep up Covid momentum

  The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation says momentum in local authority data use during the Covid-19 pandemic is in danger of being dissipated without central government investment and support for data skills development

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  Foxtons rejects claims of slow reaction to data leak

  Investigators have unearthed 16,000 data records that seem to have been stolen in an attack on property firm Foxtons last year, but the organisation says it acted by the book in dealing with the incident

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  ‘Classic’ Cerber ransomware targets health sector in high volumes

  Cerber ransomware-as-a-service seems to have re-emerged as one of the most critical cyber threats facing healthcare organisations, reports VMware Carbon Black

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  UKRI suspends services after ransomware attack

  UK Research and Innovation was hit by an undisclosed strain of ransomware at the end of January

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  ‘Victory for free speech and openness’ after tribunal confirms no territorial restrictions to FOIA

  Freedom of information tribunal rules that investigative journalists and others can use the Freedom of Information Act if they live outside the UK or are not British citizens

• January 31, 2021 31 Jan'21

  Indian firms see growing value of data

  Half of Indian IT leaders see a permanent increase in value of data as their organisations come under threat from mounting cyber attacks amid the pandemic

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Hunting and anti-hunting groups locked in tit-for-tat row over data gathering

  The leaking of internal documents has prompted a row between pro- and anti-hunting groups about the legality of the other’s data collection practices

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Biometrics ethics group addresses public-private use of facial recognition

  Home Office’s Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group releases briefing note on the use of live facial recognition in public–private collaborations following a year-long investigation

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  Pandemic response has improved privacy posture, says Cisco

  Data privacy seems to be ‘coming of age’ to some extent and organisational responses to Covid-19 may be partly responsible, according to a report

• 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