NEWS & UPDATES

If you’ve ever been left wondering just how the latest marketing company managed to get hold of your information, the reason can actually be very simple.

There are loads of companies out there who hold your data, and some may pass on or sell your data for profit; even when they’re not actually allowed to. Sometimes, it can be a lack of understanding as to how the data laws work, but most of the time it’s probably just a way of making easy money on the basis that they hope they won’t be caught.

But the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is often on the case!
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75 MILLION nuisance calls!

You can probably guess what the nature of the calls were as well, right? It’s not hard to guess when pretty much everyone in the UK has been hit with these automated calls by companies who are desperate to find people to make PPI claims.

The company at the centre of this massive breach, the aptly named Miss-sold Products UK Ltd, reportedly made the automated marketing calls between November 2015 and March 2016, and they were the standard and annoying automated voice calls trying to push people to make PPI claims.
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There are masses of medical data stored on servers around the world and unfortunately hackers manage to find ways into these storage systems and gain access to this highly sensitive data.

This can be particularly relevant in the U.S., where their healthcare system means records are managed by a number of private organisations, or sourced to private entities whose responsibility is to manage medical records for several healthcare institutes. Although such ease of access can be beneficial from a medical perspective, the danger is the growing exposure of medical data to being hacked.
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Firms behind a massive 44 million spam emails, 15 million nuisance calls and millions of spam texts have been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The four companies at the centre of this mass tirade of nuisance marketing have been hit with fines totalling £600,000 by the UK’s data watchdog. The offending companies failed to have the proper agreement of their targets prior to contacting them, which is what landed them in trouble for their actions.
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The government has warned of the increased fines organisations face for breaching Data Protection rules from May 2018, which could see fines as high as £17m.

Utility firms, transport firms, the healthcare sector and infrastructure companies are being warned to develop more robust safeguards to defend themselves from data breaches and cyberattacks, or face the costly consequences.

With mandatory reporting and massive fines being implemented in the next few months, the warnings cannot fall on deaf ears.
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Giant online retailer Amazon has introduced its brand new service to stop thieves stealing your parcels from your doorstep: Amazon Key. Instead of leaving your parcel outside, Amazon wants to open your front door to drop off your parcel.

Does this sound like a good idea to you? Technology today can do almost anything, so surely something like this is just another step towards a brighter, more innovative future?

I don’t know about you, but it sounds rather risky to me…
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Vanquis Bank Limited reportedly instigated a campaign to promote and advertise its banking services by instructing a third party to send 870,749 spam text messages, and another 620,000 spam emails.

As recipients reportedly didn’t consent to receiving these types of messages, Vanquis were found in breach of the law and have been ordered to stop and pay a £75,000 fine.

Some 131 complaints about the texts were made to the 7726 spam reporting service.
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There is growing importance for organisations to protect against hacking. In light of a number of infamous hacks that have occurred in recent years, it’s clear that we’re all at risk of third-party actors hacking into our servers and systems.

We have seen millions of documents and files being hacked from a number of organisations worldwide. Malicious actors can get in with simple vulnerabilities, like an organisation’s failure to update their Outlook webmail system. One simple error like this could lead to the whole organisation’s data servers being accessed!
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In recent years, the healthcare industry has been a big target for cyber-hackers, and there have been some huge cases reported. The healthcare industry leads the way in terms of the highest number of breaches and leaks in the U.K. and in other countries too, and in one example we’ll take a look at here, a hospital suffered a medical data breach that reportedly affected some 30,000 patients.

A medical breach involving 30,000 patients is absolutely monumental!
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Xerpla Limited boasts of a range of services for companies who really want to get their business off the ground. The London-based firm say they provide innovative design, advertising, and web hosting and consultancy services for their customers.

However, they may be using the cheapest way to reach as many people as possible.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received 14 complaints over emails sent from the firm, and therefore began investigating them. The ICO found that the firm was responsible for sending over 1,257,580 million spam emails to promote and advertise products and services on behalf of their customers.
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Cyberattacks and data breaches have soared in recent years, and the U.S. has suffered huge amounts of breaches that has also affected U.K. organisations and citizens too.

They’re a worry because they can identify weaknesses in a country similar to us in terms of technological reliance and development. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at seven of the biggest government data breaches from across the pond in the U.S.
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Amazon recently launched their Amazon Web Service (AWS) – a completely separate arm to their huge retail business. The ever-expanding company has been hugely successful, primarily by embracing the modern method of online retail.

The AWS is marketed at all businesses and organisations: large, small, and even start-ups. Its services include database storage, analytics and management services, and they pride themselves on providing ‘flexibility, scalability and reliability’. The seemingly impressive service has already attracted many high profile companies and organisations including British Gas; Just Eat; Channel 4 and Trainline.
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