Security News
The British offices of Barclays Bank are under investigation over allegations that managers spied upon their own staff as part of a workplace productivity improvement drive. Back in February, the bank trialled tracking software to detail the amount of time employees spent at their desk, as revealed by City AM. Last week an employee received a "Work yoga" assessment on their daily performance informing them they had spent "Not enough time in the Zone yesterday," the City paper reports.
The British teenager accused of being part of the gang that hacked Twitter and posted a cryptocurrency scam from various US celebrities' accounts has not yet been arrested. Mason Sheppard, a 19-year-old of Bognor Regis in the English county of West Sussex, has been visited by the National Crime Agency but no arrests have been made on this side of the Atlantic.
The trade union's servers were breached at the end of July, knocking out its website on the 30th as BDA personnel scratched their heads. Trade news site Dentistry Online reported BDA chief exec Martin Woodrow as saying: "As we attempted to restore services, it became clear hackers had accessed our systems."
Nearly half of British university staff say they have received no cybersecurity training, according to a recent survey. 46 per cent of staff received no training at all, while one Russell Group uni said that just 12 per cent of its staff had received "Any" training in infosec matters.
Uncommonly well-informed people knew all about it by reading The Register's report of the Blackbaud ransom payment last week, but mere Muggles only heard of it when universities began informing students, staff and alumni that their personal data had been nicked. The University of York told its students and alumni on Wednesday that names, dates of birth, student numbers, addresses, phone and email addresses, fundraising details, details of occupation and employer details were among the data stolen, according to student news site York Mix.
British infosec businesses are celebrating the 30th birthday of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 by writing to Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging reform of the elderly cybercrime law. The Computer Misuse Act received Royal Assent on 29 June 1990, before "The concept of cyber security and threat intelligence research," the CyberUp campaign group said in its letter [PDF].
South Wales Police and the UK Home Office "Fundamentally disagree" that automated facial recognition software is as intrusive as collecting fingerprints or DNA, a barrister for the force told the Court of Appeal yesterday. Jason Beer QC, representing the South Wales Police also blamed the Information Commissioner's Office for "Dragging" the court into the topic of whether the police force's use of the creepy cameras complied with the Data Protection Act.
Britain's Ministry of Defence contractor Interserve has been hacked, reportedly leaking the details of up to 100,000 of past and current employees, including payment information and details of their next of kin. The Daily Telegraph reports that up to 100,000 employee details were stolen, dating back across a number of years.
One of Britain's most powerful academic supercomputers has fallen victim to a "Security exploitation" of its login nodes, forcing the rewriting of all user passwords and SSH keys. Sysadmins warned ARCHER users that their SSH keys may have been compromised as a result of the apparent attack, advising them to "Change passwords and SSH keys on any other systems which you share your ARCHER credentials with".
One of Britain's most powerful academic supercomputers has fallen victim to a "Security exploitation" of its login nodes, forcing the rewriting of all user passwords and SSH keys. Sysadmins warned ARCHER users that their SSH keys may have been compromised as a result of the apparent attack, advising them to "Change passwords and SSH keys on any other systems which you share your ARCHER credentials with".