Cybersecurity Expert

The UK government controversially gave a green light to Huawei get involved with the building of the UK's 5G networks , although the Chinese tech giant role will be limited to non-sensitive areas of the network, such as providing antennas. This decision made by Theresa May came days after US intelligence announced Huawei was Chinese state funded , and amidst reports historical backdoors in Huawei products, stoking up the Huawei political and security row even further this month, and has resulted in the UK Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, being sacked.  Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson sacked over Huawei leak Daily Telegraph publishes details of a meeting about using the Chinese telecoms firm to help build the UK's 5G network Huawei row: Inquiry to be held into National Security Council leak Is Huawei a Threat to UK National Security? What's the greater risk to UK 5G, Huawei backdoors or DDoS? Backdoors found in Huawei-supplied Vodafone e...

The first month of 2019 was a relatively slow month for cyber security in comparison with the steady stream of cyber attacks and breaches throughout 2018.  On Saturday 26th January, car services and repair outfit Kwik Fit told customers its IT systems had been taken offline due to malware, which disputed its ability to book in car repairs. Kwik Fit didn't provide any details about the malware, but it is fair to speculate that the malware outbreak was likely caused by a general lack of security patching and anti-virus protection as opposed to anything sophisticated. B&Q said it had taken action after a security researcher found and disclosed details of B&Q suspected store thieves online. According to Ctrlbox Information Security, the exposed records included 70,000 offender and incident logs, which included: the first and last names of individuals caught or suspected of stealing goods from stores descriptions of the people involved, their vehicles and other incident-re...

Dixons Carphone said hackers attempted to compromise 5.9 million payment cards and accessed 1.2 million personal data records . The company, which was heavily criticised for poor security and fined £400,000 by the ICO in January after been hacked in 2015 , said in a statement the hackers  had attempted to gain access to one of the processing systems of Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores. The statement confirmed 1.2 million personal records had been accessed by the attackers. No details were disclosed explaining how hackers were able to access such large quantities of personal data, just a typical cover statement of "the investigation is still ongoing".  It is likely this incident occurred before the GDPR law kicked in at the end of May, so the company could be spared the new more significant financial penalties and sanctions the GDPR gives the ICO, but it is certainly worth watching the ICO response to a repeat offender which had already received a record ICO fine this...