Category: Security

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ICO Investigation Into Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology

ICO head Elizabeth Dunham is reported to have launched a formal investigation into how police forces use facial recognition technology (FRT) after high failure rates, misidentifications and worries about legality, bias, and privacy. Concerns Expressed In Blog Post In May In a blog post on the ICO website back in May, Elizabeth Dunham expressed several concerns…
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70% Increase In DDoS Cyber Attacks On Black Friday Prompts Christmas Warning

Cyber security experts are warning companies with online shops to have adequate protection against DDoS attacks in place after a 70% increase in that kind of cyber-attack was recorded on Black Friday. What Is A DDoS Attack? A denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack on that is intended to make a computer or network unavailable to…
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SIM Swap Scam Warning

A recent investigation by BBC TV’s Watchdog Live revealed evidence that some mobile phone shop staff are not conducting proper ID checks for replacement SIM requests, thereby enabling some customers to become victims of SIM swap scams. What is a SIM Swap Scam? SIM swap scams are believed to have been in existence for the…
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£385,000 Data Protection Fine For Uber

Ride-hailing (and now bike and scooter-hiring) service Uber has been handed a £385,000 fine by the ICO for data protection failings during a cyber-attack back in 2016. What Happened? The original incident took place in October and November 2016 when hackers accessed a private GitHub coding site that was being used by Uber software engineers.…
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Data Protection Trust Levels Still Low After GDPR

A report by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has shown that as 42% of consumers have received communications from businesses they had not given permission to contact them (since GDPR came into force), this could be a key reason why consumer trust in businesses is still at a low level. Not Much Difference The…
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Bitcoin and Other Crypto-Currencies Hit New Lows

After losing 74% of its value so far this year, Bitcoin’s value, and that of other crypto-currencies have continued to fall this month as a sell-off takes place in what some see as the natural course for the market, and as another opportunity to buy crypto-currencies at a low price. What’s Been Happening? According to…
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CNBC: Google is shutting down its Plus social network sooner than expected after second security bug found

CNBC: Google is shutting down its Plus social network sooner than expected after second security bug found. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/10/google-shutting-down-social-network-sooner-because-of-new-security-bug.html

Firefox Quantum Browser’s ‘Monitor 2.0’ Will Warn You About Security Breaches

Mozilla’s latest update for its Firefox Quantum browser includes the Firefox Monitor 2.0 security tool, which can tell you whether a site you’re visiting has suffered a security breach in the last 12 months and whether your details have been leaked online. Developed in Partnership with HIBP Back in June, the Mozilla blog detailed how it…
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Business Concerns Over ‘Secondary Data’

A study by data protection and management company ‘Cohesity’ has shown that most companies store up to 10 copies of their ‘secondary data’ in different locations and must use multiple products to manage it. The Problem With Secondary Data Secondary data (not production data) e.g. all the data that a company collects from other sources…
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Free VPN Tools May Be Linked To China

A new investigation by Metric Labs of the top free VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps in Apple’s App Store and Google Play has revealed that more than half are run by companies with Chinese ownership. What’s A VPN? A ‘Virtual Private Network’ (VPN) is generally used to keep internet activity private, evade censorship / maintain…
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