Security News

'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum
2020-12-21 11:45

A company hailed as the UK's top tech employer tried to diddle a former trainee out of £2,000 in unlawfully withheld back pay - and a judge was startled when he discovered how Sparta Global treats its new hires. The £22k demand could be reduced depending on how long the trainee had worked for Sparta Global before quitting.

Mexican Drug Cartels with High-Tech Spyware
2020-12-17 13:19

As many as 25 private companies - including the Israeli company NSO Group and the Italian firm Hacking Team - have sold surveillance software to Mexican federal and state police forces, but there is little or no regulation of the sector - and no way to control where the spyware ends up, said the officials. The cyberweapons arms business is immoral in many ways.

EU, Britain to Toughen Rules, Fines for Tech Giants
2020-12-16 09:30

Big tech companies face hefty fines in the European Union and Britain if they treat rivals unfairly or fail to protect users on their platforms, in proposed regulations unveiled Tuesday by officials in Brussels and London. Big tech companies won't be allowed, for example, to stop users from uninstalling preinstalled software or apps, nor will they be able to use data from business users to compete against them.

ISACA Blockchain Framework and Guidance: Helping enterprises adopt the emerging tech
2020-12-16 01:30

To help tech professionals get a stronger grasp on the important technology and how to leverage it within their own organizations, ISACA has released two new resources: Blockchain Framework and Guidance and Blockchain: An Executive View. Blockchain Framework and Guidance offers a comprehensive blockchain reference, including overview, history, information about types and their benefits and features, as well as use cases and a framework for enterprise adoption.

Twitter scores a first for big tech after being fined €450,000 by Ireland's data watchdog for violating the EU's GDPR
2020-12-15 18:59

Ireland's Data Protection Commission has fined Twitter €450,000 after ruling a bug in the firm's Android app that allowed users' private messages to be publicly viewed infringed the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. "The DPC's investigation commenced in January, 2019 following receipt of a breach notification from Twitter and the DPC has found that Twitter infringed Article 33(1) and 33(5) of the GDPR in terms of a failure to notify the breach on time to the DPC and a failure to adequately document the breach. The DPC has imposed an administrative fine of €450,000 on Twitter as an effective, proportionate and dissuasive measure" the DPC said.

The lines between corporate and tech strategy continue to blur
2020-12-15 16:28

Deloitte picked resilience as the theme for its 12th annual tech trends report; a word that became a mantra in nearly every organization after their 2020 plans were upended by the coronavirus pandemic. In a webinar Monday, the firm identified nine trends separated into three groups that focus on how organizations can use technology to digitize, modernize, and enhance their businesses.

As if Productivity Score wasn't creepy enough, Microsoft has patented tech for 'meeting quality monitoring devices'
2020-12-01 14:30

It all sounds innocent enough until you read about the requirement for "Quality parameters" to be collected from "Meeting quality monitoring devices", which might give some pause for thought. Productivity Score relies on metrics captured within Microsoft 365 to assess how productive a company and its workers are.

Big Tech Welcomes Biden Presidency, But Battles Loom
2020-11-10 14:45

Silicon Valley is welcoming the election of Joe Biden as US president even as it girds for a series of battles over tech policy in Washington. At the same time, the Biden campaign has cultivated ties with current and former tech personalities; and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has ties to the sector, including her friend Sandberg of Facebook and her brother-in-law Tony West, Uber's chief legal officer.

EU Agrees on Tighter Rules for Surveillance Tech Exports
2020-11-10 11:56

The European Union on Monday agreed to tighten up rules for the sale and export of cybersurveillance technology. EU lawmakers and the European Council reached a provisional deal to update controls of so-called dual use goods such as facial recognition technology and spyware to prevent them from being used to violate human rights.

Tech support scammer dialed random number and Australian Police’s cybercrime squad answered
2020-11-06 03:05

A tech-support scammer making random phone calls in the hope of finding a victim called the cyber-crime squad of an Australian police force, which used the happy accident to document the con trick and inform the public on what to watch out for. The call was placed to the Financial and Cybercrime Investigation Branch in the state of South Australia, where the cops serve 1.75 million citizens.