Data protection regulations and compliance

BCS: Lack of communication over NHS GPDPR ‘astonishing’

The Chartered Institute for IT has warned that millions of people are not being properly informed of NHS Digital plans to harvest their data Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Tories fined over email data protection breaches

The Conservative Party broke the law by failing to properly keep records of who had unsubscribed from its mailing list Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Exagrid pays $2.6m to Conti ransomware attackers

Backup appliance specialist hit by Conti ransomware in May with cyber criminals downloading employee and customer data, confidential contracts and source code Continue Reading

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• Valéry Rieß-Marchive, Rédacteur en chef
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Privacy experts concerned over NHS data collection plans

Security and data privacy experts warn NHS Digital that its data collection plans could increase risk and cause a public backlash Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

More data stolen in January 2021 than in all of 2017, says report

The volume of data being stolen through breaches is growing steadily and shows no sign of slowing, according to a report from Imperva Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Oil and gas firm halves backup licence cost with Hycu move

Summit E&P made a strategic move to Nutanix hyper-converged and away from NetApp and VMware and wanted backup that could handle virtual machines and physical servers Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Threat of group GDPR legal action haunts CISOs

The vast majority of security leaders questioned for a new report say they are concerned about the possibility of group legal settlements against them following a serious data breach Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Industry reflects on three years of GDPR

Looking back on 12 tumultuous months, we assess how GDPR has weathered the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit, and consider what the coming year may hold for data protection Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Making data an asset, not a threat

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the latest developments in the UK government’s National Data Strategy and what it means for the economy. Our latest buyer’s guide explains the emerging technologies around computational storage. And we look at the advances in customer experience management during the pandemic. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Reports of stolen Irish health service data being leaked online

Leaking of deeply confidential and personal information on patient healthcare marks a new low for the criminal Conti gang Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Microsoft EU Data Boundary dubbed ‘smoke and mirrors’

Data protection experts claim Microsoft’s decision to create an EU Data Boundary is a tacit admission that it routinely transfers and processes the personal data of European citizens outside the bloc Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Scammers accidentally reveal fake Amazon review data

More than 13 million records relating to an organised fake review scam have been found on an unsecured ElasticSearch database, implicating hundreds of thousands of people in unethical behaviour Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

G7 countries to cooperate on digital regulation

Digital and technology ministers outline their agenda for how technology can be used to facilitate the post-Covid recovery, signalling closer collaboration in key areas of the digital economy Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

NHS App to serve as vaccine passport for foreign holidays

Existing NHS App will have vaccine passport functionality added to it, transport secretary confirms Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Backup failure: Four key areas where backups go wrong

We look at the key ways that backups can fail – via software issues, hardware problems, trouble in the infrastructure and good old human error – and suggest ways to mitigate them Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Leaky Azure storage account puts software developer IP at risk

Source code for multiple products was left exposed in an unsecured Microsoft Azure cloud storage account, say researchers, but attributing responsibility for the error has proved difficult Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Ireland’s DPC launches probe into Facebook leak

The Irish Data Protection Commission has launched an ‘own volition’ inquiry into the leak of data from 500 million Facebook profiles Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

What has a year of home working meant for the DPO?

Byron Shirley of The Compliance Space explores how the role of the data protection officer has changed in the past 12 months Continue Reading

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• Byron Shirley, The Compliance Space

Facebook data leak could be outside scope of GDPR

Regulators may be unable to do much about leaked data on 533 million Facebook users, as it seems to have been stolen before GDPR came into force Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Backup survey: UK councils’ downtimes five times longer than average

Backup product supplier Veeam’s freedom of information request finds councils’ average downtime is seven hours and that backup and disaster recovery testing is not done frequently Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Backup appliances the hot topic for Pas-de-Calais fire brigade

With requirements for strict, long-duration backup and archiving, French fire brigade set out to replace optical media with a StorageCraft appliance and disaster-proof storage Continue Reading

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• Pierre Berlemont
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

The 3-2-1 backup rule: Has cloud made it obsolete?

The 3-2-1 backup rule was made for small-scale use in the pre-cloud era when tape still ruled. Is it relevant in the 2020s, or can we repurpose its fundamental principles? Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

IWM uses StorCycle to free capacity for all-flash SAN upgrade

Imperial War Museums set to embark on unstructured data archiving project that will archive cold data to tape and free up capacity for a move to IntelliFlash all-flash SAN Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Survey: Backup failures hit a high as pandemic working hits home

Veeam survey finds distributed working plus operations that span on-prem and the cloud the background to high numbers of failures in backup and restore, with 40% of SLAs not met Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Digital Green Certificate proposed for travel in Europe

Digital Green Certificates will supposedly help re-establish freedom of movement within the European Union Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Government calls for input into Covid-19 vaccine passports

Evidence gathering exercise will inform the development of the UK’s proposed Covid-19 vaccine passport scheme Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

CW Innovation Awards: Fighting fake Covid-19 vaccines with blockchain

A blockchain-based system developed by Singapore-based Zuellig Pharma can help governments and healthcare providers weed out fake vaccines and manage vaccine distribution and administration Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Why the London Data Charter could be a foundation stone in the city’s recovery

London First’s director of connectivity and competitiveness, David Lutton, explains why data is at the core of the capital’s recovery plan Continue Reading

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• David Lutton

UK digital regulators set out plans to strengthen cooperation

Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum outlines plans for the coming year, marking a shift towards a more collaborative regulatory approach Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Top five threats to compliance during the pandemic

We survey the top five pandemic compliance threats – remote working, Covid tracking, criminal exploits, compliance measures slipping, and heightened enforcement to come Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Met Police chooses Capgemini as strategic IT infrastructure services provider

Capgemini has a history of providing the force with day-to-day technology services, and will now deliver its infrastructure services under the Pegasus programme Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Five ways that disaster recovery changes in a pandemic

Covid-19 has changed IT. Previously, working remotely was a business continuity measure, but now it is the norm. That means disaster recovery has to adapt to new risks and new ways to respond Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Veritas looks beyond NetBackup for growth in ASEAN

Veritas has seen increased demand for its availability tools as it looks to address backup and recovery requirements from cloud, database and VMware workloads Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

UK’s Arkivum up for €4.8m EU science data archive project

CERN-led multi-petabyte scale research data archive bid will use Google cloud and compete with AWS-based and open source designs from other providers Libnova and Onedata Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

SME backup: Card maker ditches tape-only for Nakivo 3-2-1 setup

IG Design Group gains a modern backup regime with data held on disk, in the cloud and long-term on tape in a move that has helped it to slash backup and restore times Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Arcserve and StorageCraft merger aims for ‘single pane of glass’

Arcserve and StorageCraft bring a lot of similarities but enough differences for their backers to bet on with their merger, with unifying management between product sets the only priority currently stated Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Veeam v11 adds continuous data protection and cloud archive

Backup specialist’s annual upgrade brings continuous data protection to offer better RPOs and RTOs than existing snapshot functionality and without impact on running processes Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Dell to invest $50m in Singapore innovation hub

Dell Technologies’ global innovation hub will house a research and development lab and other facilities to drive development and adoption of emerging technologies Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Netbackup 9 adds flexibility with hyper-converged backup options

Veritas’s enterprise backup flagship is available in hyper-converged infrastructure and has embraced containerisation, for better hardware and application scalability Continue Reading

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• Yann Serra, LeMagIT

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 Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Human factor dominates Australia’s latest data breach numbers

The number of data breaches resulting from human error increased by 18% in the second half of 2020, according to Australian government’s latest notifiable data breaches report Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Five key questions about Kubernetes backup answered

We look at when to back up containers, what to protect, the main methods of backup for Kubernetes and the main Kubernetes backup products available in the market Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Nakivo to use AWS Object Lock as anti-ransomware tool

Backup software maker leverages AWS Object Lock’s ability to create immutable WORM repositories as a means of helping organisations protect against malicious deletion or corruption Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

ICO resumes adtech investigation

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office was criticised for ending its investigation into alleged malpractice in advertising technology, but has now resumed its probe Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Value of GDPR fines shows dramatic increase in 2020

European regulators imposed almost €160m worth of fines during the past 12 months, a substantial rise Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

MoD reports 18% rise in data loss incidents

The Ministry of Defence reported more than five hundred data security incidents in 2019-20, with seven serious enough to warrant disclosure to the ICO Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

150,000 records accidentally wiped from police systems

Home Office claims data wiped from national police systems only relates to people who have never been convicted of a crime or had further police action taken against them following an arrest Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Coalition proposes secure standard model for Covid-19 passports

Vaccination Credential Initiative is working to ensure that people vaccinated against Covid-19 can access their records in a secure, verifiable and privacy-preserving way Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Defend against ransomware with these 5 data backup products

Consider backup and recovery tools that incorporate ransomware protection to help defend against cyberthreats. Continue Reading

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• Robert Sheldon

Cloud DR from the Big Three: Who’s best at what?

We look at cloud disaster recovery from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google to see which is best for provision of turnkey solutions, breadth of portfolio and modular building blocks Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Data Dynamics aims at single view of unstructured data

Data volume is ballooning, and storage is becoming more disparate, which makes the need for a single platform to manage storage and compliance a key requirement for organisations Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Major facial-recognition supplier builds system to identify masked faces

Facial-recognition supplier claims new system can accurately identify masked faces, therefore promoting public health during the pandemic. But questions remain about whether its existing UK law enforcement clients will be deploying the technology Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Brexit deal grants UK temporary data adequacy

The EU-UK Brexit deal has granted the UK temporary data adequacy to allow for the continued flow of data across borders, but the agreement has divided data protection experts Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Hackney Council data leaked by Pysa ransomware gang

Council data stolen in October is leaked online in a double extortion attack Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Five key points about cloud vs in-house disaster recovery

The cloud is well suited as a disaster recovery failover option. The key questions are about what you should keep on-site and what goes to the cloud. We look at five key points to consider Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Utility supplier People’s Energy has entire customer list stolen

All 270,000 customers of People’s Energy, a renewable energy startup, have had their details compromised in a major data breach incident Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

HMRC referred 11 data security incidents to ICO in 2019-20

HM Revenue & Customs shares details of a number of data security incidents that occurred during the 2019-20 financial year in its annual report Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Need to know: Five key things about backup testing

We look at five key things to consider when it comes to backup testing – what to test, how often, making sure backups work, whether recovery is effective and ensuring processes are consistent Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Kaspersky shuts down data-processing activities in Russia

Cyber security provider’s data storage and processing activities for customers in Europe, the US and Canada, have now been fully relocated to Switzerland Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Brexit and risks to data privacy and governance

EY privacy specialists assess the risks to data privacy, protection and governance on the table for businesses, with less than two months until Brexit Continue Reading

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• Paul Smith and Krittika Singh

Leaky AWS S3 bucket once again at centre of data breach

Prestige Software exposed millions of records after failing to pay attention to the security of its cloud instances Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

IT Priorities 2020: Covid-19 consolidates storage push to cloud

The emphasis on home and remote working has been felt in storage and backup as in all areas of IT, with continued evolution towards the cloud and as-a-service storage and backup Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

IT Priorities 2020: After Covid-19, security goes back to basics

This year’s transition to remote working highlighted big gaps in the fundamentals of security, as updated TechTarget/Computer Weekly data reveals Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

ICO sued over ‘failure’ to address ad industry practices

Privacy campaigner the Open Rights Group claims the advertising technology industry is systematically breaching the GDPR, and the ICO is doing nothing about it Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Slot of the Antarctic: Tape the best option for polar survey backup

Tape deemed the best medium for backup on board the Antarctic research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough, with Quantum’s Scalar i3 chosen in a fully redundant deployment Continue Reading

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• Yann Serra, LeMagIT

GDPR lawsuit against Oracle and Salesforce moves forward

Class action suit seeks claims worth more than £10bn over the processing of personal information Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

How Snowflake is charting its growth in APAC

The cloud data warehouse supplier set foot in Asia-Pacific just three years ago and has started to gain traction among large enterprises in Singapore, India and Southeast Asia Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Commvault launches Metallic backup service in Europe

Backup giant adds backup as a service, with cloud-to-cloud backup and e-discovery functionality that can work across on-site datacentres and the AWS and Azure clouds Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

ICO slams Experian over ‘invisible’ data processing

Data processing practices used by Experian broke data protection law, says Information Commissioner’s Office Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

BA breach penalty sets new GDPR precedents

The 90% reduction in the fine levied on BA over a 2018 data breach has legal experts talking about the ramifications for the future of data protection Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Podcast: Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Covid-19 and storage

We look at how organisations can use Cybersecurity Awareness Month as an opportunity to revisit their handling of data and compliance, especially with changes brought by Covid-19 and home working Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

BA argues ICO data breach fine down to £20m

Information Commissioner’s Office levies fine of £20m on British Airways for failing to protect the personal data of hundreds of thousands of passengers – a vast reduction on the initial £183m penalty Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Cloud data protection keeps the Crick’s medical research Covid-secure

Cloud data management services from Rubrik gave the Francis Crick Institute a data protection edge and have helped keep its vital work going through the pandemic Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

CW APAC: Trend Watch – storage

Many organisations turn to cloud to cut storage bills, but the options available and potential costs are many and varied. In this handbook, Computer Weekly takes a peek at future storage technologies, such as helium and DNA, and offers some valuable tips on how to keep cloud storage costs under control. Continue Reading

Fintech ‘unicorn’ Klarna probed over data misuse

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

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Security Think Tank: Adapting defences to evolving ransomware and cyber crime

The threat of identity theft via a data breach is heightened with the rise of attacks where ransomware threat actors both encrypt and ransom, and exfiltrate and leak their victims’ data. How does this evolution in cyber crime heighten risk for the enterprise, and what steps can we take to safeguard the personal data we hold? Continue Reading

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• Paddy Francis

The future of storage

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine emerging technologies in storage such as helium disks and DNA. Ransomware is becoming more sophisticated and the attackers more tactical. And as the EU’s top court challenges the UK over surveillance, we ask what this means for data privacy after Brexit. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Lapsing ISO certifications: Myth versus risk

Allowing ISO certifications to lapse presents businesses with serious risks when workarounds are possible Continue Reading

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• Scott Nicholson

CW Middle East: Egypt’s datacentre plans take a step forward

While it builds an IT services industry, Egypt is also investing in infrastructure and now plans to develop a datacentre industry. Read in this issue how, as part of this plan, Egypt’s parliament has passed a data protection law. Also read how the Europe, Middle East and Africa region has seen traditional IT outsourcing deals reduce in value by 21%, while the business process outsourcing market fell by 9%. Continue Reading

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

The privacy and compliance challenges organisations face in 2021

Privacy and compliance teams have a lot on their plate as 2021 approaches. What are the key issues to consider? Continue Reading

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• John Potts, GRCI Law

Backup audit: What is a backup audit and why do we need them?

Backup and recovery are vital components to protect against data loss, whether technical or causes such as ransomware. So how can a backup audit help protect our key assets? Continue Reading

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• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Erasure coding vs RAID: Data protection in the cloud era

Erasure coding has come to prominence with its use in object storage and, by extension, in the cloud. We run the rule over its pros and cons vs RAID data protection Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

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 Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Top five ways backup can protect against ransomware

Ransomware threatens to put your data beyond reach, so the best way to prepare is to have good-quality data you can restore from backup. We look at the key things to consider Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

GDS reviewing Cloud First policy post-Schrems II

Review seeks to determine the future of government engagement with cloud hosting services as they relate to cross-border data flows Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

India’s storage market takes hit but hasn’t lost its shine

The slower growth in storage spending in India amid the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to be mitigated by digitisation efforts by financial services and manufacturing firms Continue Reading

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• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Open Data Institute explores diverse range of data governance structures

Unlocking the economic and social potential of data will require a diverse range of governance structures to meet the needs of different contexts, use cases and stakeholders Continue Reading

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• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Top five ways to benefit from tape today

We look at the benefits that tape can bring, including in backup and recovery, long-term and ‘warm’ archiving, compliance and WORM use cases and ‘air gapping’ to protect data Continue Reading

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• Stephen Pritchard

Julian Assange held back 15,000 documents to prevent harm to US government

Investigative journalist John Goetz said today that WikiLeaks held back publication of thousands of documents that could harm individuals Continue Reading

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• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

TikTok-Oracle partnership moves forward for consideration

Joint venture proposal could create thousands of jobs and secure TikTok’s future outside China Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Data of every Welsh Covid-19 patient leaked online

Data on all 18,105 people in Wales who have received positive tests for the coronavirus was uploaded to a public-facing web server in error Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Travel industry websites are laughably insecure, claims Which?

The travel industry is failing to take the data security of its customers seriously, according to a Which? investigation Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Court rejects request to exclude ‘11th hour’ US evidence against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Lawyers for Julian Assange say the US has introduced an 11th hour indictment against the WikiLeaks founder that provides additional grounds for his extradition Continue Reading

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• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Government DPOs challenged by volume of GDPR work

Data protection officers working across the UK government are finding it tough to keep up with the increased workload generated by GDPR, according to a report Continue Reading

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• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor