Security

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has become involved in a data loss incident involving Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) after it emerged that the firm had become the victim of laptop theft. The laptop which was stolen is deemed to be particularly vulnerable to exploitation because it is completely unencrypted, leaving personal financial details of customers [...]

Malicious software on a USB memory stick is being blamed for the most significant loss of data ever to have been recorded by the US military. US secretary of defence William Lynn said that a foreign agent was able to hack into a laptop using malware which was installed from a USB stick and he [...]

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has become involved in another data loss scandal involving an NHS trust, this time located in Wolverhampton. The Data Protection Act (DPA) was breached by the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust after it emerged that more than 100 patients had their details exposed in a moderately serious data loss incident. [...]

A new study has concluded that most people choose passwords that are far too short to be totally secure against brute force attacks from criminals. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are recommending that 12 characters becomes the standard length to ensure protection. This conclusion has been reached as a result of a hacking [...]

Some believe that the best way to ensure the security of cloud-based platforms and to bolster confidence in them is to opt for private rather than public services. The uptake of cloud computing is continuing to grow and it has been widely publicised that the key roadblock to adoption for many businesses is the risk [...]

Analysts are predicting that the total global spend on security tools and software packages to protect and secure data will rise by the year’s end as the industry sees the effects of the economic turndown wane. Gartner reports that businesses and organisations will spend £10.6 billion on security in 2010, which equates to an 11 [...]

The Ministry of Defence (MoD), which was recently the subject of a data loss scandal involving the loss or theft of 340 laptops over a two year period, has said that it will be significantly improving the levels of security to which it subjects its data and portable devices. A spokesperson for the MoD said [...]

The BBC has been forced to admit that it has lost nearly a quarter of a million pounds worth of laptops and smartphones over the last two years, although at this point, the cost of the resultant data loss is unknown. Security firm Absolute Software shed light on the high cost after it put in [...]

Research suggests that those at the very top of the food chain within a business are more likely to compromise the security and integrity of personal data and internal systems than those on a lower pay grade. The news comes from a report compiled by Dynamic Markets on behalf of security vendor Sourcefire, which lays [...]

Businesses and individuals are at risk of serious data loss and security breaches as a result of a new botnet running on the Zeus 2.0 platform that is gunning for internet users based in the UK, according to security vendor Trusteer. The main aim of the botnet is apparently to harvest data that will allow [...]