Editor's News

ThinkingSafe’s Cyber Awareness in Action is a new programme to help company directors understand the reality of cyber-crime and its business impact. Recent high profile incidents have increased awareness of cyber-attacks and the potential damage they can have on a business and its customers. A recent report commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills* highlighted businesses of all sizes suffer from cyber-crime and that 74% of small businesses have experienced a cyber security...

In a step to better protect users and reduce fears related to online privacy, two-factor authentication (2FA) has now been employed by seven of the ten largest social networking sites (including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) as their authentication measure of choice. Public pressure has been a driving force for the trend, with hundreds of forum posts being posted to the most conspicuous absentee – Instagram’s – user boards and even the hashtag #SupportTwoFactorAuth  being set...

Bromium®, Inc., the pioneer of threat isolation to prevent data breaches, today announced vSentry 3.0, which features, among other innovations, behavioural executable analysis to protect corporate networks from file-based and file-less targeted attacks and phishing campaigns. “Over 90 percent of breaches start with a compromised endpoint, and CISOs have realised that there’s no point in trying to close the stable door once the horse has bolted,” said Simon Crosby, CTO of Bromium. “Detection is vital,...

NHS Trusts across England do not have adequate training programmes in place to ensure their employees are guarded against cyber threats. This is according to a recent freedom of information request aimed at NHS Trusts in England carried out by Accellion. The research revealed that while 71 per cent of NHS Trusts questioned acknowledged the use of smartphones or tablets in the workplace, an equal number admitted to having a limited or no training programme in...

Tenable Network Security®, Inc., the leader in continuous network monitoring™, today disclosed that the UK received a ‘C’ overall grade for its 2016 Global Cybersecurity Assurance Report Card. Information security practitioners from the UK were asked about confidence in their respective organizations’ abilities to assess risk, invest in appropriate tools and successfully respond to cyber threats, scoring 73% overall—an underachieving “C.” Mobile device security is the Achilles heel in the UK: the country’s security professionals...

Many of the 65,000 ATMs in the UK could be at risk from cyber attack in the New Year when Microsoft ends extended support for the embedded version of its Windows XP operating system, warn researchers at UK IT security firm Abatis. From January 2016, Microsoft will be issuing no further security patches or updates for the OS still used in the majority of ATMs to deliver cash to customers in the UK and in...

Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team has spotted new attacks by the Sofacy group which make use of several upgraded techniques designed for aggressive persistency and greater invisibility of malicious activity in the attacked system. Sofacy (also known as “Fancy Bear”, “Sednit”, “STRONTIUM” and “APT28”) is a Russian-speaking advanced threat group that has been active since at least 2008, targeting mostly military and government entities worldwide. Since appearing on the public radar in 2014,...

Just in time for the Christmas party season, a new study from internet security firm ESET has revealed that UK bars guzzle up a staggering 138,000 mobile phones and laptops each year, and alarmingly 64 percent of the devices do not have any security protection installed, which means anyone can gain access to the contents they hold. As part of the study ESET phoned over 600 bars across the UK in order to establish how...

Seven teams of the UK’s best 13-18 year old code-breakers from schools across the country will today compete in an ‘I, Robot’ style cyber competition to become the ultimate young cyber security defenders. The competition, created by industry giants and government organisations, will task amateur sleuths to intercept messages and infiltrate networks in order to defend the fictional ‘Cyber City’ from criminals.  The winning school team will receive a £500 prize from AFCEA (Armed Forces...

A researcher from F-Secure Labs has written a new report examining how hackers use third party services to coordinate malware campaigns. The paper was published by Virus Bulletin for its VB2015 conference and examines how the encryption used by online services like Twitter enable attackers, such as the state-sponsored group The Dukes, to spread malware and steal data.  “If I had to put it in a nutshell, I’d say that attackers are using certain third...