News

Privacy and data protection

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Public data should not be held by US tech giants

  One-off evidence sessions to follow up on the recommendations of the House of Lords AI Committee revisit the data and ethics debate

• October 14, 2020 14 Oct'20

  Fintech ‘unicorn’ Klarna probed over data misuse

  Online bank blames misuse of user data on human error as Information Commissioner’s Office weighs in

• October 13, 2020 13 Oct'20

  Hackney Council services offline after ‘serious’ cyber attack

  Services to residents of the London borough of Hackney are being disrupted by a cyber attack

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Five Eyes spy group again demands access to private messages

  Spooks are once again calling for the tech industry to break end-to-end encryption in messaging platforms

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Cyber security skills ad branded ‘crass’ by minister

  Security skills campaign advert depicting a ballet dancer comes in for criticism as the arts sector struggles in the pandemic

• October 12, 2020 12 Oct'20

  Software AG caught in double extortion ransomware hit

  Data stolen from prominent German software company by Clop ransomware gang appears on the dark web

• October 09, 2020 09 Oct'20

  Magecart strikes website of school payments service Wisepay

  Magecart credit card skimmer harvested financial data of users of Wisepay’s platform over a two-day period

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  NCSC relaunches SME security guide with home working focus

  The NCSC is issuing an updated version of its guide to security for SMEs, reflecting the long-lasting changes to the world of work seen in 2020

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Emotet rated September’s ‘most popular’ malware

  The current resurgence of Emotet is attracting attention as governments issue new warnings and cyber criminals rush to exploit the chaotic US election

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Coronavirus face mask spammer fined by ICO

  The director of software company Studios MG spammed members of the public at the height of the pandemic as one of its directors tried to shift a job lot of face masks

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Crown Prosecution Service suffers 1,600 data breaches in 12 months

  CPS sees a spike in data security incidents, many of them serious enough to be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office

• October 08, 2020 08 Oct'20

  Threat of GDPR fines increasingly driving security buying decisions

  Scaring the people who hold the purse strings may be the best option for CISOs who need a little extra budget

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  5G regulation failures are a threat to UK’s national security

  Defence Committee report on the security of 5G brands existing regulations outdated and unsatisfactory

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  Department for Education failed to protect data on millions of children, says ICO

  The Department for Education’s National Pupil Database, which contains millions of items of data on the UK’s schoolchildren, was found to be non-compliant with data protection regulations across the board

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  ICO wraps up Cambridge Analytica investigation

  Information Commissioner’s Office concludes its investigation into Cambridge Analytica, saying no additional evidence has come to light that would change its previous assessments

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  Southeast Asia remains hotspot for cyber attacks

  Geopolitics and Covid-19 have been fodder for cyber criminals to advance their motives in Southeast Asia in 2020

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  EU’s top court questions legality of UK phone and internet data surveillance

  European Court of Justice rules that the UK and EU member states must comply with EU privacy laws when harvesting people’s sensitive communications data from telecoms and internet companies

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  Scotland digital identity prototype pilot successful

  Digital Identity Scotland’s 10-week test of its digital identity prototype finds that users understand the concept of two-factor authentication and using the same credentials across services

• October 06, 2020 06 Oct'20

  Ransomware attacks go through the roof

  The volume of ransomware attacks has jumped 50% in the past three months, according to data produced at Check Point

• October 05, 2020 05 Oct'20

  Fake news tops list of online concerns worldwide

  Receiving false information is a greater worry than other online risks such as cyber bullying and fraud, says the Lloyd’s Register Foundation

• October 05, 2020 05 Oct'20

  HMRC warns locked-down freshers of ‘wave’ of tax scams

  New university intake may be being targeted by cyber criminals amid Covid-19 confusion

• October 05, 2020 05 Oct'20

  FBI seized ‘legally privileged’ material from Ecuador Embassy, claims Julian Assange’s lawyer

  The US struck a secret deal with Ecuador to seize WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s property from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London days before his arrest. The haul included legally privileged documents, says his solicitor

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  WikiLeaks led the way for newsrooms to use encryption to protect sources, says Italian journalist

  Stefania Maurizi says in written evidence that Julian Assange pioneered the use of encryption by journalists to protect sources. Her work shows that the US put pressure on Italy to stop the extradition and prosecution of CIA officers responsible for...

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Honesty is the best policy: Forging a security culture in the NHS

  Clinician and technologist Sam Shah helped set up NHSX in 2019. Now he’s helping advance digital transformation in healthcare from the outside, and a big part of that is addressing security in the sector

• October 02, 2020 02 Oct'20

  Security pros face sanctions if they help ransomware victims pay

  New advisory from the US government warns cyber insurance and incident response specialists that they could be skating on thin ice if they help ransomware victims pay their attackers off

• October 01, 2020 01 Oct'20

  Judge to give verdict on Julian Assange’s extradition after Christmas

  Judge Vanessa Baraitser said today that she would make a ruling in early January on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the US

• October 01, 2020 01 Oct'20

  WikiLeaks revelations ‘shed light of truth’ on war on terror, court hears

  WikiLeaks disclosures led to ‘revelations of extraordinary journalistic importance’ about detention in Guantanamo Bay and civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

• October 01, 2020 01 Oct'20

  Blackbaud admits hackers stole banking details, passwords

  Software firm paid off a ransomware gang, believed its hackers when they said they had destroyed the data, and has now discovered the cyber criminals accessed even more sensitive information than it thought

• September 30, 2020 30 Sep'20

  GitHub makes code vulnerability scanning feature public

  Code-scanning service is now out of beta and generally available, helping teams to bake security into their code at the development stage

• September 30, 2020 30 Sep'20

  ‘American friends’ spied on Julian Assange in Ecuadorian Embassy, court hears

  Two former employees of UC Global, which provides security services to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, claim the company shared surveillance footage with the US of the WikiLeaks founder meeting with lawyers and other visitors

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  Julian Assange would be held with convicted terrorist Abu Hamza in supermax prison, court hears

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would be held alongside convicted terrorist Abu Hamza in a supermax federal prison in Colorado, isolated from other prisoners, if he is extradited to the US, Old Bailey told

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  Threat actors becoming vastly more sophisticated

  Malicious actors have been busily honing their craft and cyber security incidents are up across the board as a result, according to a Microsoft report

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  NCSC expands schools programme to north-east England and Northern Ireland

  Following an initial roll-out in Gloucestershire and Wales, the NCSC’s CyberFirst Schools programme is being extended to north-east England and Northern Ireland

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  NatWest offers online banking customers free security services

  Bank responds to a surge in cyber crime targeting users of online banking services

• September 29, 2020 29 Sep'20

  Ryuk attack downs private health provider in major incident

  Private healthcare provider UHS has been been hit by a major big game hunting cyber attack that infected its systems with the Ryuk ransomware

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Julian Assange would be held in ‘solitary confinement’ in US jail

  WikiLeaks founder would be held in a cell the size of a parking space for 22 or 23 hours a day without contact with other inmates before trial

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Government updates data ethics framework

  The new data ethics framework was created to better reflect how projects are run in practice after finding there was “little awareness” of the previous framework across the public sector

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  TikTok ban stayed after last-minute court case

  TikTok’s lawyers have staved off an imminent ban for the time being, after successfully arguing that it infringed rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Police Scotland to set up new cyber crime centre

  National Centre of Excellence will employ specially trained officers to tackle a vertiginous rise in cyber crime

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Security now main driving force behind digital transformation

  Organisations are urgently remodelling their core technology stack in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and this is pushing security to the top of the agenda

• September 28, 2020 28 Sep'20

  Airbnb hosts’ account data exposed in internal leak

  Data exposure within Airbnb’s system was the result of a technical issue but was swiftly fixed, says the firm

• September 25, 2020 25 Sep'20

  Forensic expert questions US claims that Julian Assange conspired to crack military password

  Forensic computer expert Patrick Eller told the Old Bailey that US allegations that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attempted to decrypt a password to help former soldier Chelsea Manning leak sensitive government documents anonymously do not fit ...

• September 24, 2020 24 Sep'20

  Third-party code bug left Instagram users at risk of account takeover

  A critical vulnerability in Instagram’s image processing could have allowed attackers to take over not just their victim’s account, but their entire device

• September 24, 2020 24 Sep'20

  NHS whistleblower privacy concerns passed on to regulator, but campaigners not holding their breath

  NHS Improvement chair Dido Harding acknowledges receiving concerns raised about the anonymity of whistleblowers, but campaigners have little faith that anything will be done

• September 24, 2020 24 Sep'20

  Government blasted over ‘reckless’ contact-tracing security

  The Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch accuse the government of endangering public health with a reckless attitude to contact-tracing data security

• September 24, 2020 24 Sep'20

  Data deluge grips enterprises amid digitisation

  Two-thirds of respondents in a new Splunk study expect the quantity of data to grow by nearly five times by 2025 as they embrace more emerging technologies

• September 24, 2020 24 Sep'20

  Australians want more control over privacy

  Nearly nine in 10 Australians want more control and choice over the collection and use of their personal information amid declining trust in how organisations handle personal data, survey finds

• September 23, 2020 23 Sep'20

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has Asperger syndrome and depression, court hears

  Julian Assange is on the autistic spectrum and has a history of depression that would put him at risk of suicide if he is extradited to a US prison, psychiatrists tell the court

• September 23, 2020 23 Sep'20

  Over half of firms intend to continue US data transfers despite Schrems II

  Survey shows many organisations do not intend to significantly change their data-sharing practices, at least until there is more guidance from regulators or governments

• September 23, 2020 23 Sep'20

  Video gamers barraged with cyber attacks

  From credential stuffing to SQL injection and DDoS, video game producers and players are seeing massive volumes of cyber attacks