Five Key Takeaways From The Russia Report

The UK Parliament’s Intelligence & Security Committee found “Russia has sought to employ organised crime groups to supplement its cyber skills” This is pivotal, as it makes attribution much, much harder. Using crime groups, or just co-opting their tools and software, makes it easier for states such as Russia to hide their cyber activities. It’s…

What UK Government is – and isn’t – saying about coronavirus vaccine hacking

There was a predictably pusillanimous BBC interview by Security Minister James Brokenshire on Friday regarding allegations that Russian state hackers attacked companies working on coronavirus vaccines. Brokenshire didn’t name the companies involved, nor did he confirm whether the hacks were successful. This is pretty typical of cybersecurity announcements: they flag up the threat, and provide…

Lockdown sexting rates rocket – but is it grooming?

As schools closed during the coronavirus lockdown, disturbing headlines emerged: 300,000 UK paedophiles were potentially ready to exploit the disruption to target children. With millions of kids at home, bored and often glued to their mobiles and tablets, it seemed reasonable to fear an increase in online grooming. But is it happening? The 300,000 figure…

Ad tech firms grapple with new rules

Online advertising giants have promised to rein in the sharing of sensitive personal data for targeted ads, but some still doubt they can comply with tough new data protection rules. At a conference organised by the Information Commissioner’s Office this week, two of the biggest names in ad tech outlined moves to restrict the amount…

More trouble with free WiFi….

If you’ve ever connected to a free WiFi hotspot (and that’s most of us), there was some worrying news from security researcher Charl van der Walt  at SecureData’s UK Cyber Security Summit yesterday. You know the pop-up page that often appears asking you to enter an email address or a phone number before you can…

Hackers hit Indian nuclear plant

News that hackers successfully infected at least one computer inside an Indian nuclear power plant once again raise concerns about targeting of the energy sector by cyber means. In a terse statement, the government’s Nuclear Power Corporation of India acknowledged the attack, but downplayed its seriousness: “the infected PC belonged to a user who was…