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Articles for Category Tag - Security

UK Government’s Copyright Tsar Blames ISPs for Facilitating Sony Hack

4th December, 2014 (9 Comments)

The UK Prime Minister’s (David Cameron) sometimes controversial Intellectual Property Advisor, Mike Weatherley (Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade), has somewhat bizarrely blamed broadband ISPs for helping to “facilitate” major hacks like the recent once that took place against Sony.

UPD Commons Intelligence and Security Committee Blames ISPs for Murder

25th November, 2014 (14 Comments)

It’s probably fair to say that most politicians can be a bit naïve when it comes to matters that require an understanding of ISPs and Internet communications. Sadly this also appears to be true of today’s report from the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee that effectively accused ISPs of failing to help stop the murder Fusilier Lee Rigby by not handing over key communications data.

UPDATE3 Government Forces IP Address Matching Upon ISPs – But What is it?

24th November, 2014 (20 Comments)

The Government’s forthcoming Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill (CTSB) will this week introduce a number of new measures including a provision to help the security services identify suspects via a computer or mobile device’s individual Internet Protocol (IP) address. But what does this actually mean for broadband ISPs and their customers?

Big ISPs to Add ‘Report a Terrorist’ Button and Block Related Websites

14th November, 2014 (14 Comments)

The United Kingdom’s largest four broadband ISPs, including BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk, have reached an agreement with the Government to block their customers from accessing terrorist and extremist material on the Internet. The ISPs will also offer a reporting button so that the public can notify providers when new sites crop up (we’re sure nobody will spam that with comical suggestions).

UK ISP Entanet Tells GCHQ – “We are NOT the police or intelligence services”

13th November, 2014 (3 Comments)

Networking and broadband provider Entanet has criticised the new boss of the Government’s Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Robert Hannigan, after he called for a new “deal” between the technology industry and intelligence organisations to help snoop on UK Internet and telephone communications

Sky Broadband’s Shield Internet Filter Adds Watershed Feature

10th November, 2014 (2 Comments)

Customers of UK ISP Sky Broadband (BSkyB), specifically those who elect to enable the providers free network-level filtering “Shield” service that works to block websites which contain “adult content” from view by young eyes (censorship), may like to know that a new watershed feature has just been added.

Virgin Media’s Censorship Tool Bodges UK Customers Internet Traffic

10th November, 2014 (0 Comments)

Cable operator Virgin Media has issued a brief apology after an unspecified number of their customers suffered problems accessing websites due to a fault with the ISPs Web Safe (Parental Control) service, which uses network-level filtering to block “potentially age-inappropriate websites” from the eyes of children.

Hyperoptic Study Claims 39 Percent of Brits Try to “Steal” Neighbours WiFi

23rd October, 2014 (3 Comments)

Fibre optic ISP Hyperoptic has conducted a new study of 2,000 British adults that attempts to collate the sometimes poor performance of standard home broadband connections with the finding that 39% of respondents admitted to using their neighbours’ Internet connection by “stealing” their WiFi, which might be partly out of frustration with their own slow connections.

Study Finds UK ISP Internet Censorship Not the Best Approach for Kids

15th October, 2014 (2 Comments)

A new survey of over 2,000 children (aged 14 – 17) from across the United Kingdom, which was jointly conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute and The Parent Zone, has claimed that restricting kids from accessing the Internet by using network-level ISP censorship (Parental Control) systems might not be as effective as allowing them to self-regulate their own online use.

UK ISPs Propose Principles to Limit Government Internet Snooping

13th October, 2014 (4 Comments)

The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has today set out the five principles that it hopes will be used by the Government as part of on-going plans to reform state surveillance laws and related regulations, which some fear could result in a broadening of powers and more unnecessary snooping on innocent individuals.

Belkin Fixes Bug that Caused their Routers to Disconnect your Internet

8th October, 2014 (3 Comments)

Owners of broadband routers made by Belkin, an American manufacturer of consumer electronics, recently found themselves unable to get online after a silly flaw in the kit meant that related customers couldn’t connect to the Internet because the device was unable to ping one of the manufacturers own remote “heartbeat” servers.

F-Secure Warns – UK People Ignore Privacy via Careless Use of Public WiFi

30th September, 2014 (0 Comments)

The potential security risks of accessing a public WiFi hotspot are nothing new and yet a new F-Secure study of consumers in London has discovered that many users are continuing to connect themselves, without first checking the hotspots validity, to so-called “poisoned” wireless Internet access points (designed to steal your data).

UPDATE2 Big UK ISPs Say Home Routers Safe from SHELLSHOCK Bug

27th September, 2014 (4 Comments)

Last week’s news was flooded with coverage of a new vulnerability in the command-line Bash interface (shell) for many Linux / Unix based systems, called SHELLSHOCK (CVE-2014-6271). Bash forms a part of everything from web servers to Smartphones (iPhone, Android etc.) and even quite a few broadband routers, but don’t worry because most of you will be safe.. probably, hopefully.

EE’s UK Internet Content Blocking System Goes Haywire

18th September, 2014 (3 Comments)

Customers of EE’s mobile service in the United Kingdom, specifically those who may be attempting to surf the Internet using their 3G or 4G based data connections (Mobile Broadband), are today being hit by sporadic problems that can result in legitimate websites being wrongfully blocked.

Cats and Dogs Used to Expose Your Home WiFi Network Vulnerabilities

11th August, 2014 (0 Comments)

Forget WarDriving because now domestic cats (“War Kittehs“) and dogs (“Denial of Service Dog“) can be hackers too. Security expert Gene Bransfield from Tenacity Solutions told the DEFCON 22 conference in Las Vegas this weekend that he’d adapted a special cat collar to help uncover open or unsecure home wifi networks in his local area.

Millions of Routers Supplied by Broadband ISPs Vulnerable to TR-069 Hackers

11th August, 2014 (4 Comments)

A team working for Check Point Software Technologies have warned that the TR-069 (CWMP) remote management protocol, which is commonly enabled in broadband routers supplied by ISPs and helps the provider to keep your device updated with the latest firmware or to perform various other tasks (e.g. diagnostics), is vulnerable to a variety of potential exploits.

UPD3 Nominet UK Bodge Risks Google.c.uk and BBC.c.uk Typo Security Threat

1st August, 2014 (7 Comments)

Nominet, which handles the registry of .uk Internet domains, is no stranger to controversy and some of their decisions over the years have caused plenty of head scratching. The latest bit of fun seems to be as a result of their new .uk rules, which have allowed typos for UK sites (e.g. bbc.c.uk, google.c.uk and hsbc.c.uk) to go to a different server (you can do it for almost any .uk or .co.uk domain).