Top 10 Stories

Five hundred patients may have suffered serious harm as a result of the NHS mislaying 500,000 test results and letters over a five-year period, ministers and officials have admitted in parliament. The review is also understood to be looking at whether correspondence between GPs and hospitals that was mislaid between 2011 and 2016 caused or contributed to the death of any patients, sources added. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: The Guardian

If you own a stuffed animal from CloudPets, then you better change your password to the product. The toys -- which can receive and send voice messages from children and parents -- have been involved in a data breach dealing with more than 800,000 user accounts. The breach, which grabbed headlines on Monday, is drawing concerns from security researchers because it may have given hackers access to voice recordings from the toy's customers. But the company behind the...

It only takes seconds for ransomware to block access to an entire network, but the vast majority of businesses remain locked out of crucial files and systems for a week or more, with the impact causing severe financial and reputational damage. Data gathered from over a thousand businesses which have been victims of ransomware within the last year suggests that 85 percent of those infected by the malicious file encrypting software had their systems forced...

A breach in the Ministry of Defence’s (Mindef) Internet access system for servicemen and employees earlier this month led to personal data, comprising NRIC numbers, telephone numbers, and dates of births, of around 850 servicemen and employees being stolen. No classified military information was stored on the hacked system. The attack "appeared to be targeted and carefully planned”, said Mindef deputy secretary (technology) David Koh on Tuesday (Feb 28). The ministry added that the real...

A sophisticated and likely government-backed malware campaign has targeted the public sector in South Korea. Attacks on these individuals could be an attempt to gain a foothold into assets that can be deemed extremely valuable. Cisco Talos discovered the campaign was active between November 2016 and January 2017, targeting a limited number of people. The malicious document in question, which is written in Korean, is a Hangul Word Processor (HWP), a popular alternative to Microsoft Office in...

The treason charges that were brought against of a top cybersecurity expert from Kaspersky Laband two Russian state security officers in December is reportedly linked to allegations made in 2010 by a Russian businessman Pavel Vrublevsky. According to sources familiar with the matter and Vrublevsky, who is the founder of an online payments firm ChronoPay, the arrests of Kaspersky Lab heads of incidents investigation team Ruslan Stoyanov and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials Sergei Mikhailov...

NSA and US Cyber Command boss Mike Rogers has revealed the future direction of his two agencies – and for the private sector, this masterplan can be summarized in one word. Kerching! Speaking at the West 2017 Navy conference on Friday, Rogers said he is mulling buying up more infosec tools from corporations to attack and infiltrate computer networks. At the moment the online offensive wing of the US military develops most of its own cyber-weaponry, he...

One of the new features coming in the Windows 10 Creators Update (and still not announced by Microsoft, for some reason) is the possibility of blocking the installation of Win32 software, limiting the operating system to Windows Store apps. View full story ORIGINAL SOURCE: Softpedia

Thousands of patients may have suffered delays to treatment after it was revealed that the NHS failed to deliver more than half a million sensitive documents to GPs. Test results from biopsies and patient treatment plans were among the thousands of official records that went missing between 2011 and 2016. The hospital documents did not reach the intended recipients because patients had either moved away or were not known showing up on practice records. View...

Online financial services and lending companies are increasingly being targeted by fraudsters and costing consumers millions of pounds around the world last year alone, according to research. Cyber attacks against online lending companies and alternative payment systems increased 122pc last year, according to ThreatMetrix, a security company that monitors more than 20bn online transactions a year. The fraud is estimated to have cost consumers as much as £8bn in 2016, the company said. View full story ORIGINAL...