News

Privacy and data protection

• August 01, 2024 01 Aug'24

  Banks, telcos call for more data sharing to fight fraud

  A Which?-led coalition of banks and telecoms operators is calling on the UK's new government to take the lead on enabling data sharing to help fight digital fraud

• July 31, 2024 31 Jul'24

  Mayor launches London Privacy Register for smart city information

  To increase transparency around and trust in London’s smart city technology deployments, the London Privacy Register aims to provide the public with more information about the systems they encounter in their day-to-day lives

• July 30, 2024 30 Jul'24

  Basic failures led to hack of Electoral Commission data on 40 million people

  UK government identifies Chinese state-linked hackers as likely to have been behind attack on the Electoral Commission

• 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 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 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

  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

  Chrome cookies reprieved amid Google Privacy Sandbox changes

  Google abruptly changes tack on third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser, cancelling plans to deprecate them in favour of an unspecified ‘new experience’ for users

• 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

  Growth in nude image sharing heightens cyber abuse risk

  The normalisation of sharing self-created intimate content with others is putting great numbers of people at risk of online abuse, says Kaspersky

• July 16, 2024 16 Jul'24

  Incubator Plexal heads to Singapore for CyberBoost

  Cyber startup hub Plexal expands its presence to Singapore through a new initiative, and sets its sights on helping new UK businesses break into the booming Asia-Pacific market

• July 15, 2024 15 Jul'24

  How Snowflake is tackling AI challenges

  Snowflake’s regional leader Sanjay Deshmukh outlines how the company is helping customers to tackle the security, skills and cost challenges of AI implementations

• 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 10, 2024 10 Jul'24

  The security interview: Managing the ‘no’ mindset

  Matt Riley, data protection and information security officer at Sharp Europe, discusses balancing cyber risks with business leaders’ goals

• June 28, 2024 28 Jun'24

  How Recorded Future is operationalising threat intelligence

  Recorded Future is investing in APIs to enable automated security workflows, among other measures, to help organisations overcome the hurdles of operationalising threat intelligence

• June 27, 2024 27 Jun'24

  Gulf Edge to operate Google Distributed Cloud in Thailand

  The Gulf Energy subsidiary will offer Google’s sovereign cloud service in Thailand with a focus on air-gapped configurations

• June 25, 2024 25 Jun'24

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange freed from prison

  A deal reached with US authorities will end the WikiLeaks founder’s years-long legal saga, setting him free if he pleads guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge

• June 25, 2024 25 Jun'24

  NHS experts raise warning over patient data breach risk in registries project

  Clinicians warn that the NHS England Outcome Registries Platform has poor security and is vulnerable to cyber attack, putting critical patient data at risk of being exposed

• June 24, 2024 24 Jun'24

  Sellafield pleads guilty to criminal charges over cyber security

  Nuclear Decommissioning Authority-backed organisation Sellafield Ltd pleads guilty to criminal charges brought over significant cyber security failings that could have compromised sensitive nuclear information

• June 21, 2024 21 Jun'24

  Qilin ransomware gang publishes stolen NHS data online

  The ransomware gang behind a major cyber attack on NHS supplier Synnovis has published a 400GB trove of private healthcare data online

• June 21, 2024 21 Jun'24

  Executive interview: Open models pros and cons

  We speak to Meta’s vice-president of AI research about recent publicly released research and models, and the role of closed AI models

• June 21, 2024 21 Jun'24

  ICO police cloud guidance released under FOI

  Long-awaited guidance from the UK data regulator on police cloud deployments highlights some potential data transfer mechanisms it thinks can clear up ongoing legal issues, but tells forces it’s up to them to decide if the measures would work

• June 20, 2024 20 Jun'24

  Sir Alan Bates hits out at Post Office ‘incompetence’ after data breach

  Victims of the scandal react with anger at news the Post Office published a document containing their names and addresses on its website

• June 19, 2024 19 Jun'24

  Microsoft admits no guarantee of sovereignty for UK policing data

  Documents show Microsoft’s lawyers admitted to Scottish policing bodies that the company cannot guarantee sensitive law enforcement data will remain in the UK, despite long-standing public claims to the contrary

• June 11, 2024 11 Jun'24

  PSNI ran secret unit to monitor journalists’ and lawyers’ phones, claims former senior officer

  The Police Service of Northern Ireland denies claims that its anti-corruption unit used a standalone computer to ‘avoid scrutiny and control’

• June 10, 2024 10 Jun'24

  NHS blood stocks running low after ransomware attack

  The NHS is appealing for people with O Positive and O Negative blood types to come forward to donate as hospitals in London struggle to keep critical services running after ransomware attack

• June 07, 2024 07 Jun'24

  Northern Irish police used covert powers to monitor over 300 journalists

  PSNI publishes report on police surveillance of journalists and lawyers, but Northern Ireland’s Policing Board says it does not give the assurances needed

• June 07, 2024 07 Jun'24

  DDoS gang threatens to disrupt European elections

  Russian hacktivists are threatening to disrupt the European Parliament elections, while the BBC reports on new deepfake threats to the UK’s electoral process

• June 07, 2024 07 Jun'24

  Bitdefender makes MDR services free to NHS bodies hit by Qilin

  Bitdefender offers NHS bodies affected by a major cyber incident free access to its product suite, as the health service continues to deal with the impact of the Qilin ransomware attack on partner Synnovis

• June 07, 2024 07 Jun'24

  Sophos uncovers Chinese state-sponsored campaign in Southeast Asia

  Sophos found three distinct clusters of activity targeted at a high-level government organisation that appeared to be tied to Chinese interests in the South China Sea

• June 06, 2024 06 Jun'24

  FBI finds 7,000 LockBit decryption keys in blow to criminal gang

  The US authorities say they now have more than 7,000 LockBit decryption keys in their possession and are urging victims of the prolific ransomware gang to come forward

• June 05, 2024 05 Jun'24

  Qilin ransomware gang likely behind crippling NHS attack

  Security experts investigating a major cyber attack on an NHS partner that has caused frontline services across South London to grind to a halt say the Qilin ransomware gang appears to be the culprit

• June 04, 2024 04 Jun'24

  OAIC files civil penalty action against Medibank

  The OAIC alleges that Medibank failed to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information of 9.7 million Australians in the October 2022 data breach

• June 04, 2024 04 Jun'24

  Invasive tracking ‘endemic’ on sensitive support websites

  Websites set up by police, charities and universities to help people get support for sensitive issues like addiction and sexual harassment are deploying tracking technologies that harvest information without proper consent

• June 04, 2024 04 Jun'24

  NHS services at major London hospitals disrupted by cyber attack

  A major cyber attack at NHS services provider Synnovis is disrupting frontline care at hospitals across London

• June 04, 2024 04 Jun'24

  Russia used fake AI Tom Cruise in Olympic disinformation campaign

  Microsoft threat researchers report a surge in Russian disinformation campaigns targeting the 2024 Summer Olympics, including AI-enhanced propaganda

• June 03, 2024 03 Jun'24

  Police chief commissions ‘independent review’ of surveillance against journalists and lawyers

  PNSI chief constable appoints lawyer to conduct review into police phone surveillance of journalists, lawyers and NGOs

• June 03, 2024 03 Jun'24

  Major breaches allegedly caused by unsecured Snowflake accounts

  Significant data breaches at Ticketmaster and Santander appear to have been orchestrated through careful targeting of the victims’ Snowflake cloud data management accounts

• June 03, 2024 03 Jun'24

  Sellafield local authority slammed over response to North Korean ransomware attack

  The local authority for Europe’s biggest nuclear site has been slammed by auditors for its response to a North Korea-linked cyber attack that temporarily crippled its operations

• June 02, 2024 02 Jun'24

  Ticketek Australia hit by data breach

  Customer names, dates of birth and email addresses of Ticketek Australia account holders reportedly impacted in latest data breach affecting event ticketing firm

• May 31, 2024 31 May'24

  Law student ‘unfairly disciplined’ after reporting data breach blunder

  A law student has accused a leading legal college of unethical behaviour and a “lack of integrity” after it brought misconduct proceedings against him when he reported a data security blunder

• May 29, 2024 29 May'24

  Storebrand divests from IBM over supply of biometrics to Israel

  Norwegian asset manager Storebrand’s decision to divest from IBM comes amid growing scrutiny of the role technology companies play in Israel’s human rights abuses

• May 29, 2024 29 May'24

  Proofpoint exposes AFF scammers’ piano gambit

  Ransomware and nation state actors dominate the headlines, but fraud and scams still net career cyber criminals thousands from unsuspecting members of the public. Proofpoint reports on a campaign targeting victims of a musical inclination

• May 29, 2024 29 May'24

  Organisations value digital trust, but aren’t working at it

  Three quarters of organisations believe digital trust is relevant to their businesses, yet clear gaps in strategies still seem to persist

• May 29, 2024 29 May'24

  Interview: EU data chief Ulrich Ahle on obstacles to Europe’s digital single market

  EU data scheme Gaia-X is trying to plug the UK into Europe’s planned digital single market as opposition mounts to efforts to extend the reach of Europe’s vast and controversial data laws over global supply chains

• May 28, 2024 28 May'24

  Executive Interview: Why Dell wants to be your one-stop AI shop

  At Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, artificial intelligence was the talk of the town as Dell staked out an all-encompassing strategy ahead of an anticipated goldrush. Dell’s Nick Brackney explains why the tech giant believes it's onto a winner

• May 24, 2024 24 May'24

  Parliamentarians warn of UK election threat from Russia, China and North Korea

  Joint parliamentary security committee chair Margaret Beckett writes to prime minister urging government to prepare for foreign states interfering with 4 July election

• May 23, 2024 23 May'24

  Northern Ireland police face £750,000 fine after data protection blunder put lives at risks

  Information commissioner John Edwards uses discretion to reduce proposed fine from £5.6m to £750,000

• May 21, 2024 21 May'24

  The Security Interviews: What is the real cyber threat from China?

  Former NCSC boss Ciaran Martin talks about nation-state attacks, why the UK has become so exercised about cyber espionage, and how our leaders are in danger of misunderstanding their adversaries

• May 20, 2024 20 May'24

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange granted appeal

  Two high court judges granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal against extradition to the US after defence lawyers argued that the US had failed to give adequate assurances