Theft, breaches and ICO warnings: Top 10 IT news stories of the week
CIOs should be watching their backs after a particularly cybercrime-riddled seven days in IT
It's been a week dominated by doom and gloom in the security sector, but at least we got some good news about Microsoft's latest hybrid tablet outing...
10. 'Russian cyber gang' steals 4.5 billion usernames and passwords
A Russian hacking gang nicknamed "CyberVor" was this week found to be holding the largest known cache of stolen data, comprising 4.5 billion records that contains an estimated 1.2 billion username and password combinations unique to the gang.
Exploiting SQL injection flaws seems to be the main way the gang grabbed the unique data, while the rest was obtained from the wider black market.
Many industry experts are now calling for new ways to secure user data over and above email and password combinations.
9. Sophos implements Zuora, Adobe Campaign, Salesforce and SAP in major transformational programme
Sophos told us how it's overhauled its 20 global offices with solutions from Salesforce, SAP, Zuora and Adobe, with apparently hugely productive results.
"We had a set of platforms that had evolved over time, a lot of organic in-house development solutions that were well suited to our organisation at the time, but my role was to address how this was going to change in line with where Sophos wanted to go," CIO Jason Richards told Computing.
"We knew what we wanted to do with products, but we were a bit nervous with whether the back office and internal IT were going to enable and support that transformation," he added.
8. 2e2 finally ceases to exist - with gaping £257m shortfall owed to creditors
Systems integrator 2e2 - long bankrupt and leaving many of its customers in the lurch without their data since going bust in 2013 - finally ceased to exist this week.
In what the company called its "last progress report", the company said its only preferential creditors are employees in respect to certain claims in relation to wages arrears, holidays and pensions. It seems unlikely contractors will be able to claim.
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Theft, breaches and ICO warnings: Top 10 IT news stories of the week
CIOs should be watching their backs after a particularly cybercrime-riddled seven days in IT
7. HP to sue former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain
The HP vs Autonomy fraud story rolled ever onward this week, as HP announced it was suing Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of Autonomy who it claims is "one of the chief architects" of the accounting fraud at the heart of the dispute between the two companies.
HP has long been in a legal battle with those at Autonomy responsible for valuing the company before the November 2011 acquisition.
HP claims that Lynch and Hussain engaged in fraud by false accounting by, for example, recognising software revenues in deals involving bundled hardware and "channel stuffing". Lynch and Hussain argue that Autonomy's accounts were not only signed off by the company's auditors, but also passed HP's own due diligence process.
6. Apple iPhone 6 with 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays to be launched on 9 September
Expected to pack a 2GHz A8 microprocessor, 2GB of memory and the firm's new mobile operating system iOS8, the device is also expected to come in 4.7-in and 5.5-in variations.
Still expected to command a premium price, it remains to be seen whether Apple will be able to introduce any true innovation with the device, on a par with the original iPhone or the iPad, both of which largely kick-started the smartphone and tablet industries singlehandedly.
5. 'Lack of maturity' in Hadoop big data analytics space, says Hotels.com CTO
Hotels.com's CTO, Thierry Bedos, accused the entire big data tools market of showing a "lack of maturity" this week, as he feels there isn't enough compatibility with datasets stored within Hadoop.
"The reason I feel there's a lack of maturity is because traditionally those analytical tools have been using RDBMS [relational database management system] as their primary data platform," Bedos said.
"And now Hadoop has been getting a lot of momentum and you see there are lots of tools to do development on top of Hadoop."
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Theft, breaches and ICO warnings: Top 10 IT news stories of the week
CIOs should be watching their backs after a particularly cybercrime-riddled seven days in IT
4. ICO issues warning to law firms following string of data breaches
The ICO issued a warning to law firms after 15 major breaches of such companies in just the past three months.
Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said he wanted to "sound the alarm" for legal professionals about the potential consequences of lost data.
"The number of breaches reported by barristers and solicitors may not seem that high, but given the sensitive information they handle, and the fact that it is often held in paper files rather than secured by any sort of encryption, that number is troubling," he said.
The ICO has published a set of "top tips" for barristers and solicitors, including storing personal data on encrypted memory sticks, password protecting emails and other examples of common sense the profession arguably should have been observing for years.
3. All 500,000 Cryptolocker victims can recover files for free
The 500,000 victims of the CryptoLocker malware have been bailed out by security firms FireEye and Fox-IT, who have managed to produce keys to unlock affected data, which Cryptolocker's creators - thought to be a subgroup of Gameover Zeus malware - were trying to use for extortion.
"The criminals continue to push the boundaries; Fox-IT's InTELL team and FireEye have shared expertise and investment to deliver a free service that demonstrates there are plenty of good guys who are there to help those who are the victims of the criminals," said Andy Chandler, senior vice president at Fox-IT.
2. Warning issued over 'Backoff' point-of-sale malware
The US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) issued a warning about "Backoff" this week - a point-of-sale malware infection that is believed to already have infiltrated 600 retail businesses.
Manifesting in three variants, it logs keystrokes, scrapes PoS devices for credit and debit card data, and can send these back to its botnet. It also embeds itself in Windows' explorer.exe.
Undetected in most current security software, signatures are expected to appear for Backoff soon.
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Theft, breaches and ICO warnings: Top 10 IT news stories of the week
CIOs should be watching their backs after a particularly cybercrime-riddled seven days in IT
1. Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review - is it the future of the endpoint?
The 12-in screen with 3:2 aspect ratio feels built with the enterprise at its core, and new kickstand and keyboard innovations mean it's never been more convenient to use.
Check back next week for an account of what it's like to use the Surface Pro 3 on a daily basis.