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Articles for Category Tag - Security

UK Government Confirms Europe-first Ban on SIM Farms

24th April, 2025 (18 Comments)

The UK government has today confirmed its intent to ban SIM Farms (both possession and supply) some 6 months after the new Crime and Policing Bill (CPB) receives Royal Assent. The move is designed to better protect the public from fraudsters and scammers who also use the devices for criminal purposes (e.g. sending scam/spam messages and calls to mobile users).

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Ofcom Confirm Ban of Global Titles to Tackle Abuse of UK Mobile Networks

22nd April, 2025 (3 Comments)

The national telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today confirmed that it will ban UK phone operators from leasing Global Titles (GTs) – numbers like +44 (for the United Kingdom) that support mobile services – to third parties. Sadly, such leasing can be misused to try and intercept messages and calls, disrupt the operation of networks and track the location of users of other networks.

Home Phone and UK Broadband VoIP Services

Ofcom UK Probe Primo Dialler Over Possible Misuse of Phone Numbers

14th April, 2025 (3 Comments)

The UK telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, has today opened a new investigation into call centre solutions’ provider Primo Dialler, which will examine “concerns that numbers sub-allocated to [the company] are/were being misused, including to facilitate scams.”

Bundle of optical fibers with lights in the ends lay on keyboard.

Universities Demo UK’s First Long-Distance Quantum-Secured Fibre Network

10th April, 2025 (12 Comments)

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge claim to have demonstrated the UK’s “first long-distance ultra-secure transfer of data over a quantum communications network” using “standard [single-mode] fibre optic infrastructure“. The test successfully transmitted a live quantum-secured video call over a distance of 410km (between Bristol and Cambridge).

Virgin Media UK Offer Free Broadband Router Upgrade from Oldest Hubs

9th April, 2025 (21 Comments)

Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those still using some of the provider’s oldest routers (i.e. Hub 2 AC, Hub 2 and Hub 1), have recently become the latest group to receive a letter inviting them to upgrade to the HUB 4.0 (ARRIS TG3492LG-VMB) “at not extra” cost. This is because the old hardware no longer receives security updates.

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Broadband ISP Fibrus to Deploy Nokia Deepfield Across UK Network

8th April, 2025 (0 Comments)

Infracapital-backed network operator Fibrus, which is building a full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network across rural parts of Cumbria (England) and Northern Ireland, has today announced a new 5-year agreement to deploy Nokia’s Deepfield solution across their UK network. This is a network monitoring, management and security solution.

Network map of United Kingdom. Country digital connections map. Technology, internet, network, telecommunication concept. Vector illustration.

Gov Sets Out More Details of New UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill

2nd April, 2025 (2 Comments)

The UK government has set out the scope and ambition for their new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (CSRB), which aims to respond to increasing attacks from “cyber criminals and state actors” by toughening and expanding the existing rules for broadband, mobile, managed service providers, data centres and even their suppliers.

Scam Alert UK Finger on Computer Keyboard Warning

Three UK Boosts Scam Protection via New Bitdefender Partnership

24th March, 2025 (2 Comments)

Mobile operator Three UK has today announced a new partnership with global network security firm Bitdefender, which has resulted in the launch of a new ‘Three Device Security’ service – expressed as being a “powerful new subscription service designed to safeguard customers against fraud, phishing, and malware attacks“.

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Broadband ISPs Report UK Problems with Vulnerable DrayTek Routers UPDATE6

23rd March, 2025 (78 Comments)

A number of broadband ISPs from across the United Kingdom (and possibly other countries too), such as ICUK and Andrews & Arnold (AAISP), have this weekend noticed an unusual increase in internet disconnections among customers who have DrayTek routers at home or in the office. The issue seems to be caused by a “router vulnerability“.

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New Technology Helps Subsea Fibre Optic Cables to Detect Sabotage

18th March, 2025 (3 Comments)

A new report reveals how several companies are responding to the growing problem of deliberate sabotage against vital subsea fibre optic cables, which carry much of the world’s internet data traffic, by turning those same cables into a sophisticated sensor net capable of detecting when, where and how an attack may be occurring.

O2 UK’s AI Flags 50 Million Suspected SPAM and Scam Calls a Month

18th March, 2025 (5 Comments)

Readers may recall that mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) integrated Hiya’s new AI-powered scam detection service (‘Call Defence’) to help combat fraud and nuisance calls last November 2024 (here). Since then, more than 150 million “suspected” scam and spam calls have been flagged by the new technology, recently rising to more than 50m per month.

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Cable Thieves Knock Out Broadband in St Neots for a Second Time UPDATE2

17th March, 2025 (10 Comments)

Criminals have, for the second time in the space of around one month (here), today disrupted Openreach’s broadband services in the Cambridgeshire (England) town of St Neots by attempting to steal an unspecified amount of the UK network operator’s local copper telecoms cable.

DrayTek Reveal Multiple New Security Vulnerabilities in their Routers

13th March, 2025 (15 Comments)

Customers of DrayTek‘s popular broadband routers, which are a familiar name in the UK ISP world, have this week been notified about two recently published security vulnerabilities in several of their products – both of which have a Common Vulnerability Score (CVSS) of 9.8 out of 10. But don’t worry, new firmware already exists to patch them.

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SHiFT Bring Together UK Full Fibre Operators to Improve Health and Safety

7th March, 2025 (0 Comments)

The SHiFT Group (Safety & Health in Fibre Telecoms), which was setup a few years ago to help improve health and safety practices and standards across the UK’s fibre broadband industry, has informed ISPreview that they will once again be bringing network operators together at a conference on 2nd April 2025 – at the Heart of England Events and conferencing centre.

Quantum computing interior - Vodafone PR 030325

Vodafone UK Tests IBM Quantum Safe Tech for Internet Security

3rd March, 2025 (0 Comments)

Customers of Vodafone UK’s mobile and broadband services, specifically those that also use their internet anti-malware ‘Secure Net‘ service (included with their ‘Pro II Broadband’ packages), may in the near future be able to benefit from quantum-safe cryptography after the operator collaborated with IBM on a new Proof of Concept (PoC) test.

Hiya Finds 32 Percent of Unknown UK Calls are SPAM in Q4 2024

25th February, 2025 (5 Comments)

The Q4 2024 Global Call Threat Report from Hiya, which works with broadband ISPs and mobile operators (BT, EE, O2, Virgin Media etc.) to help tackle SPAM and fraud calls, has revealed that UK residents received 4 spam calls per person each month (unchanged from Q3) and the percentage of unknown calls that are spam hit 32% (up from 28%).

Broadband Outage in St Neots After Thieves Steal Openreach Cable

18th February, 2025 (12 Comments)

Broadband, phone and Ethernet services in the Cambridgeshire (England) town of St Neots have been disrupted after criminals ripped up and stole around 500 metres worth of Openreach’s (BT) copper telecoms cable, which has impacted four of their fibre street cabinets in the area – serving premises with around 380 customers.