ICO fines Uber £385,000 for failing to protect data of 2.7 million UK customers

The breach In October 2016 a massive breach affecting 57 million Uber customers and drivers was discovered by the company, but instead of acknowledging the breach Uber paid £75000 to the hackers in exchange for deleting the data and keeping the breach quiet. In effect hiding the data breach from the regulators and all affected […]

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Phishing emails lure university students in the UK

In the last month, the students of many UK universities have been targeted with phishing emails. The UK’s tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has warned that fraudsters are using fake tax refund emails to trick students into handing over their personal information. Although institutions across the UK have been targeted, thousands of students […]

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Metropolitan Police Service’s ‘Gangs Matrix’ breached data protection laws

The ICO has issued an enforcement notice, ordering the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to overhaul how it manages and shares data recorded on the Gangs Matrix, a database that records intelligence related to gang members. The Gangs Matrix was created after the 2011 riots and has played a primary role in solving a wide range of […]

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Security and usability without a trade-off

In the past, effective security often came at the expense of usability and vice versa. Presently, many still believe that both security and usability can’t be achieved together effectively and that a trade-off is inevitable. A lot of the time its accepted that a choice must be made. You either choose a secure and unusable […]

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Personal data of 9.4 million Cathay Pacific passengers breached

Hong Kong based international airline, Cathay Pacific, that serves flights around the world announced a data breach which exposed the personal information of 9.4 million of its passengers. This breach is the latest in a string of recent data breaches to affect the aviation industry including British Airways, Air Canada and Delta Airlines which all […]

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ICO fines Bupa £175,000 for failing to protect customer data from misuse

Bupa Insurance Services Limited who manages domestic and global insurance policies has been fined £175,000 under the Data Protection Act 1998 for failing to have appropriate organisational and technical measures in place to protect customers’ data from unauthorised access and misuse. As the data controller, Bupa, failed to protect the personal records of 1.5 million […]

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Uber to pay £113 million to settle 2016 data breach

Following the disclosure last year of the 2016 Uber data breach that Uber desperately tried to hide, Uber has agreed to pay £113 million to settle legal action brought by drivers, customers and states over the breach which exposed data of 57 million customers and drivers. Uber’s chief legal officer Tony West said in a […]

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GDPR: 7 Fundamental principles pivotal to privacy by design

The GDPR dictates that organisations ‘implement appropriate technical and organisational measures’ to ‘ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of processing systems and services’. It also mandates that data protection measures be implemented ‘by design and by default’. It’s apparent that privacy and data protection must be rooted in every part of information technology […]

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ICO fines Equifax £500,000 for failing to protect customers’ data

A year on from the disclosure of one of the world’s worst data breaches, the Equifax data breach that impacted 146 million customers globally, the UK’s Information Commissioners Office has fined the credit reporting agency the maximum penalty of £500,000 for failing to protect the personal data of its customers. How the breach unfolded While […]

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British Airways Hacked: Aviation industry is a growing target for cybercriminals

British Airways Breach British Airways (BA) has been hacked. On Wednesday evening BA noticed some anomalies and realised that something was very wrong. After investigating through the night, it uncovered that customer data had been stolen. BA began notifying customers on Thursday night that a data breach had occurred impacting their financial and personal information […]

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Accounting firms are prime targets for hackers, here’s how to protect your business

Accountancy firms of all sizes are routinely targeted by hackers. Firms hold a wide range of personal data including tax identification numbers, logins and sensitive financial details, making them an attractive target for cyber criminals who wish to sell on personal data. Cyber thieves are becoming ever more inventive and are finding new routes into […]

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Hackers took £11 million of law firms’ money last year, here’s how to protect your business

Last year, there was a 20 per cent rise in cyber-attacks on law firms. According to figures from the National Cyber Security Centre, this saw cyber thieves take more than £11 million of client money from UK firms. Whilst financial reasons are still the most significant motivation behind attacks, hackers are also often keen to […]

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