News

Privacy and data protection

• March 26, 2024 26 Mar'24

  Qilin ransomware gang claims cyber attack on the Big Issue

  A ransomware attack on the systems of publisher and social enterprise Big Issue Group has been claimed by the Qilin gang

• March 26, 2024 26 Mar'24

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange given temporary reprieve over extradition

  Court seeks assurances from the US that Assange will be given First Amendment Rights, will not prejudiced at trial because of his nationality, and will not be subject to the death penalty

• March 26, 2024 26 Mar'24

  NCSC reaffirms guidance for those at risk of Chinese state hacking

  As the UK and US governments announce sanctions and indictments of a Chinese state threat actor, the NCSC has reiterated its security advice for individuals at risk of being targeted for espionage purposes

• March 26, 2024 26 Mar'24

  US authorities charge seven over Chinese hacking

  The US Department of Justice has charged seven Chinese nationals linked to the APT31 threat actor that targeted politicians in the UK and US

• March 25, 2024 25 Mar'24

  Which? calls for government action on fake banking sites

  Amid high volumes of spoofed, fraudulent banking websites, Which? is calling for the government to implement new legal obligations for domain registrars

• March 25, 2024 25 Mar'24

  Chinese hackers responsible for two ‘malicious’ cyber campaigns against UK

  Government sanctions two Chinese nationals and a Chinese company identified as responsible for cyber campaigns against government officials and members of parliament

• March 25, 2024 25 Mar'24

  Britain’s democracy under threat from Chinese cyber attackers, government warns

  The deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, is due to tell Parliament that Beijing is behind a hacking attack that obtained details of 40 million UK voters and has targeted parliamentarians who have criticised the regime

• March 22, 2024 22 Mar'24

  Open Data Institute launches digital policy manifesto

  The Open Data Institute has launched a policy manifesto ahead of the UK general election that outlines policies and issues it believes must be part of the political discussion around digital and data

• March 21, 2024 21 Mar'24

  NCSC guidance to help CEOs work through cyber incidents

  The NCSC has published in-depth guidance on how business leaders should respond to a cyber attack or data breach. Learn about some of the key steps you will need to follow

• March 20, 2024 20 Mar'24

  Ukrainians crack network that stole 100m email, social accounts

  Three members of an organised cyber criminal group who hacked and appropriated personal email and social media accounts face up to 15 years in prison

• March 20, 2024 20 Mar'24

  UK’s cyber resilience stagnates as more fall victim to attacks

  The government is calling on businesses to ramp up their cyber protections as study shows improvements to resilience are stagnating amid an ever-growing volume of attacks

• March 19, 2024 19 Mar'24

  EMEA security spend will have another boom year in 2024

  Cyber security services and technology will once again be the focus of major investment across EMEA during 2024, according to the latest Technology Spending Intentions study from TechTarget and ESG

• March 19, 2024 19 Mar'24

  Australia’s cyber security spending to grow 11.5% this year

  Highly publicised cyber attacks and growing regulatory obligations are keeping security and risk top of mind for Australian organisations this year, says Gartner

• March 18, 2024 18 Mar'24

  Spring Budget risks funding legally questionable police tech

  Open legal questions around how UK police are using facial recognition and cloud technology could undermine the £230m investment committed in the Spring Budget to “time and money-saving technology” for police

• March 17, 2024 17 Mar'24

  UK’s AI ambitions pointless while cyber security is still neglected

  The UK’s AI ambitions may be at considerable risk without stronger cyber defences across the private and public sectors

• March 15, 2024 15 Mar'24

  London Mayor’s Office reprimanded over data breach

  The London Mayor’s Office has been reprimanded by the ICO after an internal error exposed the data of people who had made complaints against the Metropolitan Police

• March 14, 2024 14 Mar'24

  Questions raised over NHS deletion of thousands of emails during whistleblower tribunal

  NHS doctor Chris Day has won the right to challenge a tribunal ruling that found no procedural unfairness when an NHS trust deleted thousands of emails. The case that raises wider questions about the use of electronic evidence

• March 13, 2024 13 Mar'24

  US authorities move a step closer to banning TikTok

  Lawmakers in Washington DC have moved a step closer to enacting a broad national ban on controversial video app TikTok in the US, with global ramifications

• March 11, 2024 11 Mar'24

  Dutch organisations vulnerable to deepfake fraud

  With the information many employees share on social media, Dutch companies are especially vulnerable to a new form of fraud

• March 07, 2024 07 Mar'24

  PSNI chief denies ‘industrial’ use of surveillance powers against journalists

  PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher has agreed to provide a report on police surveillance of journalists and lawyers to Northern Ireland’s policing watchdog

• March 07, 2024 07 Mar'24

  NI Policing Board pressed to open inquiry into PSNI spying on journalists’ phones

  Amnesty International and the Committee on the Administration of Justice have asked Northern Ireland’s policing watchdog to open an inquiry into the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s use of surveillance powers against journalists

• March 06, 2024 06 Mar'24

  Apple patches zero-days amid ‘foundational’ post-quantum update

  Apple’s iOS 17.4 update not only fixes zero-day flaws that are being actively exploited, but includes important new security protocols to safeguard users against future attacks

• March 05, 2024 05 Mar'24

  ALPHV/BlackCat gang vanishes amid ransomware ‘turmoil’

  Mystery surrounds the apparent disappearance of the ALPHV/BlackCat cyber crime gang amid reports that a prominent US victim paid a $22m ransom

• March 05, 2024 05 Mar'24

  Open Rights Group accuses LiveRamp of ‘unlawful’ data processing

  Privacy campaigners at Open Rights Group have submitted formal complaints to UK and French data regulators about allegedly unlawful data processing by online advertising firm LiveRamp

• March 05, 2024 05 Mar'24

  American Express customers exposed through third-party breach

  US card giant warns customers that their personal details may have been exposed after a third party experienced a systems breach

• March 01, 2024 01 Mar'24

  Fancy Bear sniffs out Ubiquiti router users

  The authorities have warned users of Ubiquiti EdgeRouter products to take remedial action after a number of devices were hijacked into a malicious botnet by a Russian cyber espionage unit

• March 01, 2024 01 Mar'24

  APAC firms bullish on IT spending

  More than half of organisations plan to spend more on key areas such as cyber security, generative AI and cloud in a sign of growing optimism across the region

• February 29, 2024 29 Feb'24

  Home Office GPS tagging of asylum seekers breaches data protection law

  The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued an enforcement notice against the Home Office after finding its programme to tag asylum seekers with GPS monitors breaches data protection law

• February 29, 2024 29 Feb'24

  Okta doubles down on cyber in wake of high-profile breaches

  Okta launches Secure Identity Commitment to shore up its technology in the wake of a damaging breach and elevate best practice around identity

• February 29, 2024 29 Feb'24

  Police arrested journalists as part of surveillance operation to identify confidential sources

  Three police forces took part in surveillance operations between 2011 and 2018 to identify sources that leaked information to journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal hears

• February 28, 2024 28 Feb'24

  New version of ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware hits victims

  An updated version of the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware has been spotted in the wild amid a series of attacks on American healthcare providers, prompting a new alert from the authorities

• February 27, 2024 27 Feb'24

  Hycu uses AI to develop APIs for SaaS application backup

  SaaS applications don’t usually come with built-in data protection, but Hycu plans to tackle that gap in the market with AI to generate the connectors needed to backup user data

• February 27, 2024 27 Feb'24

  Microsoft president commits to Azure open platform for AI

  Brad Smith sets out Microsoft’s ambitions to make Azure the best platform to host foundational AI models, and train and run AI applications

• February 26, 2024 26 Feb'24

  Storage and backup spend in 2024 targets risk and resilience

  The TechTarget and ESG spending intentions survey finds big bias towards averting risk and building organisational resilience, but on-premise storage a significant planned outlay

• February 23, 2024 23 Feb'24

  ConnectWise users see cyber attacks surge, including ransomware

  ConnectWise ScreenConnect users who have yet to patch against a critical vulnerability are now being targeted by a barrage of cyber attacks, including ransomware

• February 21, 2024 21 Feb'24

  Australian data breach report highlights supply chain risks

  The OAIC has called for organisations to proactively address privacy risks from outsourcing personal information handling to third parties

• February 21, 2024 21 Feb'24

  How Indian fintechs can address compliance issues

  Fintechs will need to bolster their know-your-customer practices and establish self-regulatory mechanisms, among other measures, to address compliance issues that have come under the spotlight

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  LockBit locked out: Cyber community reacts

  Reaction to the takedown of the LockBit ransomware gang is enthusiastic, but tempered with the knowledge that cyber criminals are often remarkably resilient

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  US extradition of Julian Assange is ‘state retaliation’ for exposing war crimes, court hears

  Lawyers argue that the US extradition case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is politically motivated and in is breach of the UK-US extradition treaty

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  LockBit gang members arrested in Poland and Ukraine

  The UK’s National Crime Agency and its global partners have shared more details on their audacious takedown of the LockBit ransomware operation, including news of two arrests

• February 20, 2024 20 Feb'24

  Government agrees law to protect confidential journalistic material from state hacking

  The government will update Investigatory Powers Act to require secret intelligence agencies to seek independent approval before accessing confidential journalistic material obtained by bulk hacking, but journalists remain vulnerable to other bulk ...

• February 15, 2024 15 Feb'24

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces last appeal against ‘political’ extradition

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seeking leave to appeal against extradition to the US in a case that could have chilling implications for journalists reporting on national security

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Microsoft: Nation-state hackers are exploiting ChatGPT

  Threat actors from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia have all been probing use cases for generative AI service ChatGPT, but have yet to use such tools in a full-blown cyber attack

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Dutch Supreme Court approves use of EncroChat evidence

  Defence lawyers plan appeal to European Court of Human Rights after Supreme Court upholds a conviction based on intercepted messages from the EncroChat encrypted phone network

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Southern Water customer data was taken in ransomware attack

  Southern Water has started to contact customers whose data was stolen in a January 2024 ransomware attack on its systems

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Met Police to scrap and replace ‘racist’ Gangs Violence Matrix

  A database used by the Metropolitan Police to identify and track people linked with gang violence is being decommissioned and replaced. The decision follows a long-running controversy over its discriminatory impacts on young black people, but ...

• February 14, 2024 14 Feb'24

  Security experts: Investigatory powers plans will delay security updates

  Cyber security experts warn that government proposals to amend the Investigatory Powers Act will limit tech companies’ ability to respond to security threats and could hamper the use of end-to-end encryption

• February 13, 2024 13 Feb'24

  What will result from Cohesity’s Veritas acquisition?

  The $7bn backup giant will leverage huge assets in enterprise customer base, compliance and governance intelligence, AI, R&D, and Kubernetes backup and storage

• February 08, 2024 08 Feb'24

  Why open data is needed in the battle to address homelessness

  Centrepoint needed to send FOIs to more than 300 local authorities in England to access required information

• February 08, 2024 08 Feb'24

  Executive alleged to be behind EncroChat encrypted phone network arrested

  A businessman allegedly behind EncroChat, an encrypted phone network that was used by organised crime groups, has been extradited from the Dominican Republic to France