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Here’s a roundup of the biggest security news over the past week or so.
Councils warned over misuse of data
Councils have been told that they must improve their data protection procedures, following several incidents where personal data has been misused or lost.
Privacy campaign company Big Brother Watch claims that there were 4,236 data breaches in the three years from April 2011, with confidential information involved in 260 cases and breaches linked to children in another 658.
Lenovo rolls out security service
Lenovo has launched BIOS firmware for some of its consumer PCs that eliminated a security vulnerability, which was discovered by an independent security researcher.
The firm said in a statement: “Lenovo always strongly recommends that users update their systems with the latest BIOS firmware. Starting in June, the new BIOS firmware has been installed on all newly manufactured Lenovo consumer notebook and desktop systems.”
Customers unsure if financial information is secure
Four in five consumers are not confident that their financial information is secure when dealing with big brands who take card payments over the phone, so says communications provider Elitetele.com.
33 per cent revealed that they don’t believe their data is safer today than it was five years ago, while 32 per cent stated that they would feel less secure making a purchase over the phone, compared to 22 per cent who said they would worry more about the security of their card details when buying online.
Hackers attack internet address bug
A bug that targets systems which convert doman names into IP addresses has been targeted by hackers, allowing it to launch denial-of-service malware on websites.
Konrads Smelkovs, manager at KPMG Cyber Security practice, said: “What does surprise me, however, is that every time a new vulnerability or bug becomes public, companies tend to panic and rely solely on their ability to use patches and therefore suffer the downtime that can be associated with that or risk breaches if they don’t patch immediately.
“We would always recommend users to plan for a certain amount of failure and therefore have alternative arrangements in place. For some it may be that stopping business for one hour is acceptable, but for others this may not work and putting security software in front of it or relying on a partner to take over operations during a downtime would be more appropriate.”
Less consumers concerned about cybercriminals
A recent survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab has revealed that one in 10 consumers are concerned about keeping work data safe from hackers.
The company found that 36 per cent of respondents store work files on their personal devices, while 18 per cent stated that they store corporate email accounts and passwords on their devices.
Kirill Slavin, general manger of UK and Ireland at Kaspersky Lab, said: “The best way to make BYOD work for a business is to ensure it is simple to control and easy to maintain without compromising security or performance.”
How to move to Windows 10 safely
Bitdefender has published its top tips via its HOTforSecurity blog to help users to migrate to Windows 10 safely, with optimised privacy settings.
APTs serious threat to companies
The ISACA APT Awareness Study has revealed that 93.6 per cent of businesses believe that Advanced Persistence Threats (APT) are a ‘very serious threat’ to their firms.
Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of security company High-Tech Bridge, said: “Genuine APTs usually involve exclusive zero-day exploits, custom-made malware, complicated techniques of data exfiltration to bypass corporate IDS/DLP, and a preliminary compromise of several trusted third-parties of the victim. These attacks are extremely difficult or even impossible to detect.”
Endpoint is the greatest security risk
More than 50 per cent of security professionals believe endpoint is the source of the greatest security risk, and five times greater than the network or the cloud, according to a new survey by Bromium.
Clinton Karr, senior security strategist at Bromium, said: “One reason that the endpoint is the source of the greatest security risk is because of how difficult it is to balance security and productivity. Traditional security solutions have proven ineffective at mitigating this dilemma, putting our critical infrastructure at significant risk.”
Online fraud proves costly to advertisers
A new report has found that 12.2 per cent of UK advertising impressions were fraudulent from April to June in 2015.
Integral Ad Science, a digital media company, has released its Q2 2015 Media Quality Report, which found that fraudulent ads have cost UK advertisers more than £2.77 million.
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