News

A number of prominent UK universities are amongst hundreds of organisations globally whose data has been stolen in a ransomware attack on cloud-computing provider Blackbaud.  Remarkably, it has emerged that Blackbaud was attacked back in May but waited two months to inform its users.  It has also emerged that they paid an undisclosed ransom in […]

The BBC have published a fascinating birds-eye view of a ransomware attack at the University of California San Francisco this week.  Acting on a tip-off, the BBC were able to follow the on-line ransom negotiations as they happened, culminating in the payment of $1.14m.  We can only speculate, but the willingness of the university to […]

There are many interesting lessons to learn in the unfolding saga at on-line sports retailer Wiggle… Customers first started raising concerns over two weeks ago about orders being placed on their Wiggle accounts (and payments taken) without their knowledge.  Some people also reported that they had been locked out of their accounts.  The company’s initial […]

We blogged back in January about how GDPR fines were starting to bite.  Now, drawing on data from GDPR Enforcement Tracker, we take a first look at the fines that have been issued under GDPR specifically for data breaches. The database lists 70 fines related to data breaches, ranging in value from €300 to €10m.  […]

There has been much media coverage today of “Exercise Iris”, an exercise delivered to Scottish Health Boards in March 2018 by the Scottish Government’s Health Protection Division.  The exercise scenario was based on an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Scotland, and media reporting has focused on why the exercise recommendations were not […]

I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to be somewhat surprised at the news that Baroness Dido Harding has been appointed to oversee the implementation of the new NHS Covid-19 app.  Rightly or wrongly, she will always be associated with the massive data breach at TalkTalk in October 2015 and has received significant criticism for […]

An article by Cambridge Risk Solutions, published this week in Continuity Central, looks at whether there is any evidence that firms that follow good practice in business continuity management (BCM) have fared better in the current Covid-19 pandemic.  Specifically it looks at the impact on the share prices of companies in the FTSE 100 from […]

Reading the first edition of “The Failure of Risk Management: Why it’s Broken and how to Fix it”,by Douglas Hubbard, back in 2009 was a professional epiphany for me.  Having been working in business continuity management for about five years at this stage, I was aware of the prevalence of many questionable practices in risk […]

As in many parts of the world, here in the UK we have experienced unprecedented events in recent weeks.  Amidst the grim backdrop of the numbers of infections and deaths growing daily we have seen schools, bars and restaurants closed; sport put on hold; and, finally, a nationwide lock-down.  However this has all been achieved […]

Given the heightened risk of cyber incidents in the current Covid-19 crisis, it seems timely to look at the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020 published recently by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.  Now in its fifth year the survey looks at UK businesses, charities and, for the first time, educational establishments. In […]