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Articles for Category Tag - Security

Lyca Mobile UK Confirm Personal Data Breached by Hackers

11th October, 2023 (26 Comments)

Mobile operator Lyca Mobile, which last week confirmed that it had been struck by a serious cyberattack that disrupted their systems and connectivity services across the UK (as well as in various other countries), has now confirmed that the hackers also “accessed at least some of the personal information held in our systems“.

Lyca Mobile UK Confirm Cyber Attack Responsible for Disruption

3rd October, 2023 (75 Comments)

Mobile operator Lyca Mobile, which is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) on EE’s platform, has this afternoon revealed that the reason for their recent UK service (i.e. calls and texts not working for some customers) and support problems (here) is because the network has “been the victim of a cyber attack“.

Virgin Media Business UK Hitron CHITA Router

Virgin Media O2 Business Add Free Internet Security to Broadband Plans

26th September, 2023 (0 Comments)

Broadband ISP Virgin Media O2 Business UK (VMO2) has today announced that they’re including F-Secure’s internet security solution in all newly contracted “Voom Fibre Bundle” packages, free of charge for their small business customers.

EE UK Preps Upgrades to Enhance Anti-SPAM and SCAM Filters

21st September, 2023 (10 Comments)

Broadband ISP and mobile network operator EE (BT) has announced that it is in the process of updating their existing SCAM and SPAM blocking technologies, which should enable them to root out additional scam tactics (e.g. “Hi Mum, Hi Dad” scams) and help protect consumers from hard to spot scams.

Security Concerns Dominate UK Parliament Debate on Vodafone and Three Merger

20th September, 2023 (31 Comments)

A meeting in the House of Commons (Parliament) was held yesterday that saw MPs from various different parties debate the proposed merger of Three UK and Vodafone (here), which highlighted how the dominant concerns for MPs centre around issues of national security, job losses and the risk of higher prices for consumers.

Censorship and forbidden speech warning sign uk internet

Internet Censorship Galore as UK Online Safety Bill Becomes Law

19th September, 2023 (86 Comments)

Get ready, it’s going to be a rocky ride. The UK Government’s new Online Safety Bill (OSB) is finally set to become law after passing through both houses of parliament today, largely unopposed. The goal is to tackle “harmful” content online, but the result may be a regime that has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

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Shift from UK Analogue to Digital Phone Lines Breeds New SCAMs

19th September, 2023 (6 Comments)

The Local Government Association, which represents councils across England and Wales, has warned that criminals are increasingly finding ways of exploiting the ongoing switchover from older analogue to digital based phone services in order to scam vulnerable people out of their personal data and bank details.

Government Softens Stance on UK End to End Encryption Ban

6th September, 2023 (19 Comments)

The UK Government appears to have softened its controversial stance on end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in the looming Online Safety Bill (OSB), which threatened to undermine the security of internet messaging and communication platforms by allowing private messages to be filtered and moderated.

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ISPs Move to Patch “Grave” Border Gateway Protocol Flaw

30th August, 2023 (0 Comments)

Broadband internet service providers (ISP) are being encouraged to patch or mitigate a “grave flaw” in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which could allow a remote attacker to craft a BGP UPDATE message that can de-peer (reset) BGP sessions and disrupt the global flow of internet traffic or cause a Denial of Service (DoS).

Censorship Blocked Website Message by UK ISP

Quad9 Founders on the Dangers of Global DNS Blocks by Rights Holders

30th August, 2023 (13 Comments)

The founders of third-party Domain Name Service (DNS) provider Quad9, including Chief Security Officer, Danielle Deibler, and GM, John Todd, have today spoken to ISPreview about the impact of recent court rulings that will force them to block sites suspected of internet copyright infringement (piracy) at DNS level.

Internet and UK Telecoms Security Picture

UK Court Convicts Lapsus$ Hacker for Breaching ISP BT and EE UPDATE

24th August, 2023 (16 Comments)

The Southwark Crown Court in London has today found an autistic Oxfordshire teenager, Arion Kurtaj (18), responsible for having hacked a number of major companies – including, among others, broadband ISP and mobile giant BT (EE)- while acting as a member of the wider Lapsus$ hacking group.

Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

Complaints Prompt UK ISP TalkTalk to Suspend Doorstep Sellers in Newcastle

17th August, 2023 (4 Comments)

Budget focused broadband ISP TalkTalk has “suspended all door-to-door sales activity” in the Newcastle area after residents complained about cold calling occurring in parts of the city designated as a No Cold Calling Zone (NCCZ), which should be fairly self-explanatory to everybody, if not so much the sellers themselves, apparently.

Hiya – UK Remains the Worst Place in Europe for Call Fraud

10th August, 2023 (14 Comments)

The latest Q2 2023 data from caller ID verification firm Hiya, which among other things also works with UK broadband ISP BT (EE) to help detect and block SPAM and fraud calls, has revealed that 27.3% of UK calls from non-contacts are spam (79.3 million) and, of that figure, 18% were classified as “nuisance calls” and 9.3% were “fraud calls“.

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Legal Opinion Warns of “unlawful” Clause in UK Online Safety Bill

19th July, 2023 (12 Comments)

The UK Government’s controversial new Online Safety Bill is facing more criticism today after Dan Squires KC and Emma Foubister of Matrix Chambers issued a legal opinion on its “prior restraint” clause. This suggests that there is “likely to be significant interference with freedom of expression that is unforeseeable and which is thus not prescribed by law“.

Unite Raise Conflict of Interest Concerns Over Vodafone and Three UK Merger

13th July, 2023 (16 Comments)

Unite the Union, which has previously expressed its opposition to Vodafone and Three UK’s proposed merger (here), is attempting to up the ante by pressing some of Vodafone’s largest shareholders (e.g. Blackrock, Vanguard, Norges Bank and local authority pension funds) to take a stand, on conflict of interest grounds, at the next AGM.

Vodafone Warn Gov 5G Targets to be Missed if Three UK Merger Blocked

10th July, 2023 (39 Comments)

The CEO of mobile operator Vodafone, Ahmed Essam, has indirectly warned regulators that a decision to block its attempted merger with Three UK (CK Hutchison) would result in them cutting their investment in digital infrastructure (5G broadband etc.) and being unable to deliver on the Government’s goals.

BT Reveal Cause of 999 Emergency UK Call Handling Outage

30th June, 2023 (25 Comments)

Broadband and telecoms giant BT has revealed that last Sunday’s outage and disruption to their 999 emergency services number, which resulted in 11,470 unique emergency calls being “unsuccessfully connected“, was caused by a “complex software issue” that had never previously been seen through their testing regime.