Businesses are advised against paying – but many are prepared to deal to protect users’ privacy
After a week of outages, hundreds of millions of students’ data stolen, delayed assignment due dates and school login pages being defaced by hackers, the US tech firm Instructure – which operates the education platform Canvas, used by education providers worldwide – announced it had “reached an agreement with the unauthorised actor” behind the ransomware attack.
Experts read the careful language as a sign that a ransom has been paid. The company has not confirmed this.
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© Photograph: Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images
© Photograph: Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images
© Photograph: Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images
Three-storey GreenSquare datacentre in Hazelmere was to power cloud computing and the acceleration of AI
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A 15,000 sq metre datacentre near Perth will no longer go ahead after the developer withdrew plans amid community opposition over its impact on culturally significant sites.
The three-storey, 120-megawatt GreenSquare datacentre in the town of Hazelmere had been intended to power cloud computing and the acceleration of artificial intelligence, but faced fierce community backlash – as is increasingly common with such developments.
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© Photograph: Trillion Trees
© Photograph: Trillion Trees
© Photograph: Trillion Trees
Health service has given US tech firm ‘unlimited access’ to certain data to build integrated platform, according to reports
MPs have warned that an NHS decision to grant Palantir access to identifiable patient information in its plan to use AI to improve the health service is “dangerous” and will fuel public fears that data privacy is not being prioritised.
NHS England has allowed staff from the US tech firm and other contractors to access patient data before it has been pseudonymised, despite internal fears of a “risk of loss of public confidence”, the Financial Times reported.
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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
2Apply’s over-collection of personal information adds to the power of the real estate industry in the competitive rental market, Carly Kind says
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An online rental platform has been urged to stop collecting users’ personal information after the Australian privacy commissioner found the gathering of “excessive” data compounded the vulnerability of tenants amid the housing crisis.
RentTech platforms are increasingly used by real estate agents in Australia for people applying for rental properties to submit applications and supporting documentation. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has identified 57 different rent platforms operating in Australia.
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© Photograph: Cavan Images/Alamy
© Photograph: Cavan Images/Alamy
© Photograph: Cavan Images/Alamy
Undisclosed number of names and contact and reservation details accessed in latest cybercrime attempt
The accommodation reservation website Booking.com has suffered a data breach with “unauthorised parties” gaining access to customers’ details.
The platform said it “noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of our guests’ booking information”.
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© Photograph: CrocusPhotography/Alamy
© Photograph: CrocusPhotography/Alamy
© Photograph: CrocusPhotography/Alamy
Letter from group published by MPs blames 12 March glitch on software update to its mobile banking apps
Lloyds Banking Group exposed the personal data of nearly 500,000 customers in an IT glitch that left people’s payments, account details and national insurance numbers visible to other users, a committee of MPs has revealed.
A letter from Lloyds, published by MPs on the Treasury select committee on Friday, blamed the glitch on a software defect introduced during an IT update to its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland mobile banking apps overnight into 12 March.
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© Photograph: David Burton/Alamy
© Photograph: David Burton/Alamy
© Photograph: David Burton/Alamy
Banks, governments and tech providers urged to upgrade security because current systems will soon be obsolete
Banks, governments and technology providers need to be prepared for quantum computer hackers capable of breaking most existing encryption systems by 2029, Google has warned.
The tech company said in a blogpost that quantum computers would pose a “significant threat to current cryptographic standards” before the end of the decade and urged other companies to follow its lead.
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© Photograph: Reuters
© Photograph: Reuters
© Photograph: Reuters
Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours
Robert Booth UK technology editor
Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.
With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.
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© Photograph: Andrey Kryuchkov/Alamy
© Photograph: Andrey Kryuchkov/Alamy
© Photograph: Andrey Kryuchkov/Alamy
Hard disks and magnetic tape have a limited lifespan, but glass storage developed by Microsoft could last millennia
Some cultures used stone, others used parchment. Some even, for a time, used floppy disks. Now scientists have come up with a new way to keep archived data safe that, they say, could endure for millennia: laser-writing in glass.
From personal photos that are kept for a lifetime to business documents, medical information, data for scientific research, national records and heritage data, there is no shortage of information that needs to be preserved for very long periods of time.
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© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images
© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images
© Photograph: Tetra Images/Erik Isakson/Getty Images
The rise in real estate tech means renters often hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties – at great risk
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Would you trade your data privacy and security for housing? Thanks to the rise in real estate technologies, renters often have no choice but to hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties just to have somewhere to live. All the while we are told: trust us, we take your privacy seriously.
But recent Guardian reporting has revealed that seven popular “rent-tech” platforms have serious security vulnerabilities, leaving millions of documents containing personal information of renters exposed on the open web for years. When they were alerted to the risk, only two of the seven companies responded to say they would put additional security measures in place. Is this what taking renter privacy seriously looks like?
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© Photograph: Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
© Photograph: Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images
Starmer’s team is wary of spies but such fears are not new – with Theresa May once warned to get dressed under a duvet
When prime ministers travel to China, heightened security arrangements are a given – as is the quiet game of cat and mouse that takes place behind the scenes as each country tests out each other’s tradecraft and capabilities.
Keir Starmer’s team has been issued with burner phones and fresh sim cards, and is using temporary email addresses, to prevent devices being loaded with spyware or UK government servers being hacked into.
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© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Simon Dawson/10 Downing Street
© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Simon Dawson/10 Downing Street
© Photograph: Simon Dawson/Simon Dawson/10 Downing Street
Reuters news agency says it obtained document after visiting URL it predicted file would be uploaded to
The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said he felt mortified by the early release of its budget forecasts as the watchdog launched a rapid inquiry into how it had “inadvertently made it possible” to see the documents.
Richard Hughes said he had written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, to apologise.
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© Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/Treasury
© Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/Treasury
© Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/Treasury
Kensington and Westminster councils investigating whether data has been compromised as Hammersmith and Fulham also reports hack
Three London councils have reported a cyber-attack, prompting the rollout of emergency plans and the involvement of the National Crime Agency (NCA) as they investigate whether any data has been compromised.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), and Westminster city council, which share some IT infrastructure, said a number of systems had been affected across both authorities, including phone lines. The councils shut down several computerised systems as a precaution to limit further possible damage.
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© Photograph: Artur Marciniec/Alamy
© Photograph: Artur Marciniec/Alamy
© Photograph: Artur Marciniec/Alamy
Sensitive information relates to more than 100 individuals and their referees
Personal details submitted by applicants for a job at Tate art galleries have been leaked online, exposing their addresses, salaries and the phone numbers of their referees, the Guardian has learned.
The records, running to hundreds of pages, appeared on a website unrelated to the government-sponsored organisation, which operates the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries in London, Tate St Ives in Cornwall and Tate Liverpool.
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© Photograph: Justin Kase zsixz/Alamy
© Photograph: Justin Kase zsixz/Alamy
© Photograph: Justin Kase zsixz/Alamy
When courts ban people from accessing leaked data – as happened after the airline’s data breach – only hackers and scammers win
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It’s become the playbook for big Australian companies that have customer data stolen in a cyber-attack: call in the lawyers and get a court to block anyone from accessing it.
Qantas ran it after suffering a major cybersecurity attack that accessed the frequent flyer details of 5 million customers.
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© Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
© Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
© Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
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