Technology – Expert Witness : Technology – page 8

Government offers advice to major companies on fighting cyber crime

Pixel map of Europe for Expert Witness story on cyber crime Too few company chief executives and chairs take a direct interest in protecting their businesses from cyber threats, according to new advice from the Government. In order to address the problem, government departments have joined forces with experts at GCHQ to target senior level executives in the UK's largest companies and provide them with advice on how to safeguard their most valuable assets, such as personal data, online services and intellectual property.

Cyber Security Guidance for Business was launched on 6 September at an event attended by FTSE 100 CEOs and chairs, ministers from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), Foreign Office, Cabinet Office and Home Office, and senior figures from the intelligence agencies.

Cyber security: call for doctorate bids

Blue screen of death picture for expert witness cyber story Universities have been invited to apply for grants to run two new dedicated Centres for Doctoral Training that will train postgraduates to maintain the UK's security in the face of growing cyber threats.

The centres will enhance the nation's academic capability across all aspects of the field and are part of the response to the Government's National Cyber Security Programme, which aims to create a stable, secure and open cyber environment in which the UK's interests and businesses can operate and be preserved.

The call for bids has been made by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Government's communications headquarters, GCHQ, and the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA).

Fuzzy logic could prompt cyber attacks at Games

With the Olympics about to commence and millions of visitors and competitors arriving in London, there has been a certain amount of comment on the prevalence of payments using so-called 'near field communication' (NFC) devices systems and the possibility of 'fuzz' attacks on mobile devices or 'Wallets'.

According to security experts at McAfee, 'fuzzing' involves feeding corrupt or damaged data to an app on a mobile device to discover vulnerabilities. According to McAfee, this can be accomplished in several ways, including text messages and now NFC tags.

EU must get data law right, says Lord McNally

Expert-Witness Lord_Mcnally The new EU data protection law must work for business, for government and, most important of all, for individuals, Justice Minister Lord McNally said in a statement on 28 June.

The new law to update data protection will apply to the UK; but, said Lord McNally, the Government will negotiate hard in Europe to make sure that the right balance is struck between protecting personal data, without overburdening business or stifling economic growth and innovation.

Cyber threat designers “shared source code”, say researchers

Your Expert Witness PCB pic Researchers at the Russian-based IT security company Kaspersky Lab have revealed that the people responsible for two powerful malware threats, Flame and Stuxnet/Duqu, must have worked together at some point because of the discovery of shared source code.

Alexander Gostev, Kaspersky Lab's chief security expert, said: "The new findings that reveal how the teams shared source code of at least one module in the early stages of development prove that the groups co-operated at least once."

Vitaly Kamluk, the firm's chief malware expert, said: "We think that these teams are different; two different teams working with each other, helping each other at different stages."