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Cyber Monitoring Centre develops hurricane scale to count cost of cyber attacks

The CrowdStrike incident in 2024 hit the UK like a hurricane. As it swept across the country, it brought flights to a standstill, forced hospitals to cancel operations, and brought down the computer systems and websites of hundreds of businesses.

Since the early 1970s, it has been possible to predict the damage likely to be caused by a hurricane using a five-point wind scale.

Category one hurricanes may damage roofs or break branches on trees, while at the other end of the scale, a category five hurricane could leave areas uninhabitable for months.

There’s no such way to categorise the destructive impact of cyber events like the CrowdStrike update, which brought down Windows computers worldwide in July 2024 – but that is set to change, as an initiative gets underway this year to assess the damage caused by major cyber attacks on a five-point scale.

The Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC), the first organisation of its type, has been set up by the insurance industry as an arms-length organisation to assess the impact of serious cyber attacks that have systemic implications for the UK’s infrastructure and services. It aims to make it easier for businesses to buy cyber insurance cover, and know exactly what will be covered and what won’t.

There are many ways to assess the impact of a cyber event. It could be measured in loss of life through cancelled hospital operations, the disruption caused by leaks of people’s personally identifiable information on the internet, or the strategic implications of the loss of classified government information to a hostile nation-state.

The CMC will focus on just one: the economic impact. The centre has appointed a technical committee of eminent experts to assign cyber events to a five-point scale ranging from small-scale disruptions impacting hundreds of people to catastrophic attacks affecting hundreds of thousands. Damage impacts range from less than £100m for category one events to more than £5bn for category five.

The centre plans to monitor press reports and reports from business organisations to identify significant cyber attacks with multiple victims. It has partnerships with data providers to provide statistics on cancelled flights and disruption to datacentres, and works with the NHS to gather data on cancelled operations and hospital procedures. It also has access to advice from legal experts and cyber security specialists that respond to incidents, to help it build financial models of each significant cyber event. The models are reviewed and stress-tested. The final say goes to CMC’s technical committee.

The centre aims to produce an impact report within 30 days of the cyber event that will focus on immediate financial losses. It will not take into account longer-term losses caused by, for example, the risk of litigation, or other delayed effects.

What counts as a cyber war and who decides?

The aim of the CMC is to make it easier for companies to buy cyber insurance and know what magnitude of cyber event on the five-point scale they can expect to be covered for, said Ed Lewis, a director and founder of the centre, and CEO of risk advisory service CyXcel.

The insurance industry has long struggled with how to insure cyber risks. Back in 2022, Lloyds of London issued a bulletin mandating the exclusion of “cyber war incidents” from cyber insurance cover. But who would decide whether a cyber attack was an act of warfare by a hostile state? Government or insurers?

Add to that the complex exclusion clauses developed by the London market for cyber insurance, and it was a “lawyer’s dream”, said Lewis.

It became clear that what mattered most was not which country was responsible for an act of cyber warfare, but the scale and severity of an attack. If a cyber attack had the digital fingerprints to show that it was directed against multiple targets, it had the hallmarks of a “systemic attack”.

Some insurers, particularly those that insure multiple small and medium-sized businesses, do not cover systemic risks. That is to avoid large losses if multiple clients are hit by the same catastrophic incident. However, businesses can obtain insurance cover to protect against systemic risks from other specialist insurers.

During the summer of 2022, Lewis went with a team of lawyers from his firm, Weightmans, working with insurer CFC, to France for six weeks to hammer out a solution. They came up with the idea of creating a company limited by guarantee to act as an independent centre of expertise on systemic cyber attacks.

The team spent the first half of 2023 developing a methodology to assess the financial impact of cyber attacks on a five-point, hurricane-inspired scale, and in October that year incorporated CMC as a company limited by guarantee.

The most talked-about cyber attacks are not the most damaging 

The centre reviewed three cyber attacks in a trial run in 2024, and the results were surprising. Some of the most talked-about cyber attacks were not necessarily the most damaging to the UK economy.

Take the attack on the file transfer service, MoveIT, in May 2023. It affected more than 2,000 organisations and exposed the personal data of around 64 million people. 

Although it generated headlines around the world and captivated the attention of the cyber security community, the economic impact of the attack on MoveIT on the UK was as “close to negligible” as it is possible to reach on the CMC’s “hurricane” scale.

In June 2024, another ransomware group struck pathology laboratory Synnovis, which processes blood tests for NHS organisations across London. The attack led to major disruptions for GP surgeries and NHS trusts, leading to delays in medical procedures, cancelled appointments and shortages of blood stocks.

Despite attracting mass interest, CMC judged the economic impact as relatively low, at between £100m and £1bn, with less than 0.1% of the population affected. That won it a rating of category two on the five-point scale. 

The failure of an update to CrowdStrike’s security software in July 2024 caused worldwide disruption to Windows computers, but after an initial burst of press coverage, it failed to capture the public’s continued interest. However, CMC’s experts rated CrowdStrike as a category three incident – significantly more impactful than MoveIT and Synnovis.

How the Cyber Monitoring Centre rated three high-profile cyber events

The need for trust and independence

The CMC’s assessments may not be infallible, but they come with a clear methodology and use data to inform the technical committee’s decisions, all of which will be published and open to public scrutiny. 

The idea is that the centre will act very much like an independent arbitrator. Companies offering insurance and those buying insurance will be able to agree to be bound by its decision in any dispute over insurance cover. 

That means the centre will need to be seen as completely independent of the insurance industry and government, and that it will need to build a reputation for trusted decisions if it is to be successful. 

The centre’s current plans are to raise funding through membership fees, with the organisation hoping to attract members from a wide range of industries, such as professional services, manufacturing, retail and insurers. Lewis stressed, however, that insurers and government will have no influence over the CMC’s assessments. 

“What we are very clear on is that the work of the technical committee has to be independent of government and independent of insurers,” he said. “They have to be as far as practically possible, beyond the potential for impeachment.” 

CMC could impact government policy

The work of the CMC is likely to influence the direction of government policy over cyber risks. Many hope it will help to shift the balance of regulation from policing data leaks to policing cyber failures that result in the loss of essential services.

CMC chair Ciaran Martin cited as an example an attack by the Conti ransomware group on the Irish health service, which disrupted healthcare for months in 2021.

When the Irish state refused to immediately pay the ransom, the Conti crime group stepped up the pressure by releasing medical data on the internet. It was only at that point that Ireland’s Health Service Executive was obliged to notify regulators about the incident. 

“It’s such a stark illustration of the point that a whole national healthcare system, including cancer surgeries had to stop, and that’s not a breach of obligations, but the loss of a small amount of medical data [was considered a breach],” he told Computer Weekly.

That could change in the UK if the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill passes through parliament as expected. It introduces obligations for organisations to maintain critical services, and could lead to mandatory reporting of ransomware attacks.

“I’m not saying, ‘Let’s repeal data regulation and let’s impose sweeping service obligations on small hairdressing salons’, but I’m saying, ‘Let’s think about it carefully’,” said Martin.

If you give a victim the choice between two bad situations – one is the loss of critical health services and the other is the loss of their personal data – most people would opt for losing personal data rather than losing access to medical care, he added. 

Lewis concurs. “There seems to be a disproportionate focus on cyber incidents that also involve a data breach,” he said. “I think it’s probably fair to say there’s been quite a bit of criticism of the Information Commissioner’s Office and how those powers have been used over recent times.”

Need to tackle ‘victim stigma’

He hopes that the CMC can remove what he calls “victim stigma”, where fear of bad publicity or litigation can lead organisations hit by cyber attacks to opt for secrecy rather than openness.

There are signs that this is happening already. The British Library, which faced major disruption after an attack by the Rhysida ransomware gang, published a comprehensive lessons-learned report, which was widely applauded in the cyber security community.

The Harris Federation, a network of schools in London and the South East that lost email and telephone access after a ransomware attack in 2021, has talked about its experience in a series of podcasts to help others improve their own cyber resilience.

For Martin, the CMC’s primary aim is to deliver a better functioning insurance market and better provision for companies seeking to insure against cyber attacks.

He would like to see the CMC gain credibility over time as a source of factual information for academic, government and industry papers.

And if the CMC is doing its job, he said, the media will be able to get a better handle on which cyber incidents are serious and which are likely to have a minor economic impact.

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Warning over privacy of encrypted messages as Russia targets Signal Messenger

Russia-backed hacking groups have developed techniques to compromise encrypted messaging services, including Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram, placing journalists, politicians and activists of interest to the Russian intelligence service at potential risk.

Google Threat Intelligence Group disclosed today that Russia-backed hackers had stepped up attacks on Signal Messenger accounts to access sensitive government and military communications relating to the war in Ukraine.

Analysts predict it is only a matter of time before Russia starts deploying hacking techniques against non-military Signal users and users of other encrypted messaging services, including WhatsApp and Telegram.

Dan Black, principal analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said he would be “absolutely shocked” if he did not see attacks against Signal expand beyond the war in Ukraine and to other encrypted messaging platforms. 

He said Russia was frequently a “first mover” in cyber attacks, and that it would only be a matter of time before other countries, such as Iran, China and North Korea, were using exploits to attack the encrypted messages of subjects of intelligence interest.

The warning follows disclosures that Russian intelligence created a spoof website for the Davos World Economic Forum in January 2025 to surreptitiously attempt to gain access to WhatsApp accounts used by Ukrainian government officials, diplomats and a former investigative journalist at Bellingcat.

Linked devices targeted 

Russia-backed hackers are attempting to compromise Signal’s “linked devices” capability, which allows Signal users to link their messaging account to multiple devices, including phones and laptops, using a quick response (QR) code.

Google threat analysts report that Russia-linked threat actors have developed malicious QR codes that, when scanned, will give the threat actor real-time access to the victim’s messages without having to compromise the victim’s phone or computer.

In one case, according to Black, a compromised Signal account led Russia to launch an artillery strike against a Ukrainian army brigade, resulting in a number of casualties.

Russia-backed groups have been observed disguising malicious codes as invites for Signal group discussions or as legitimate device pairing instructions from the Signal website. 

In some targeted spear phishing attacks, Russia-linked hackers have also embedded malicious QR codes in phishing websites designed to mimic specialist applications used by victims of the attack.

Russia-compromised Signal found on battlefield phones

The Russia-linked Sandworm group, also known as APT44, which is linked to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, has worked with Russian military forces in Ukraine to compromise Signal accounts on phones and computers captured on the battlefield.

Google’s Mandiant researchers identified a Russian language website giving instructions to Russian speakers on how to pair Signal or Telegram accounts with infrastructure controlled by APT44.

“The extrapolation is that this is being provisioned to Russian forces to be able to deploy captured devices on the battlefield and send back the communications to the GRU to be exploited,” Black told Computer Weekly.

Russia is believed to have fed the intercepted Signal communications back to a “data lake” to analyse the content of large numbers of Signal communications for battlefield intelligence.

Compromise likely to go undetected

The attacks, which are based on exploiting Signal’s device linking capability, are difficult to detect and when successful there is a high risk that compromised Signal accounts can go unnoticed for a long time.

Google has identified another cluster of Russia-backed attackers, known as UNC5792, that has used modified versions of legitimate Signal group invite pages which link the victim’s Signal account to a device controlled by the hacking group, enabling the group to read and access the target’s Signal messages.

Other Russia-linked threat actors have developed a Signal “phishing kit” designed to mimic components of the Kropyva artillery guidance software used by the Ukrainian military. The hacking group, known as UNC4221, previously used malicious web pages designed to mimic legitimate security alerts from Signal.

The group has also used a lightweight JavaScript payload, known as Pinpoint, to collect basic user information and geolocation data from web browsers.

Google has warned that the combination of access to secure messages and location data of victims are likely to be used to underpin targeted surveillance operations or to support conventional military operations in Ukraine.

Signal databases attacked on Android

Google also warned that multiple threat actors have been observed using exploits to steal Signal database files from compromised Android and Windows devices.

In 2023, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and the Security Service of Ukraine warned that the Sandworm hacking group had deployed Android malware, known as Infamous Chisel, to search for messaging applications, including Signal, on Android devices.

The malware is able to scan infected devices for WhatsApp messages, Discord messages, geolocation information and other data of interest to Russian intelligence. It is able to identify Signal and other messages and “package them” in unencrypted form for exfiltration.

APT44 operates a lightweight Windows batch script, known as WaveSign, to periodically query signal messages from a victim’s Signal database and to exfiltrate the most recent messages.

Russian threat actor Turla, which has been attributed by the US and the UK to the Russian Federal Security Service, has used a lightweight Powershell script to exfiltrate Signal desktop messages.

And in Belarus, an ally of Russia, a hacking group designated as UNC1151 has used a command-line utility, known as Robocopy, to line up the contents of file directories used by Signal desktop to store messages and attachments for later exfiltration.

Encrypted messaging services under threat

Google has warned that attempts by multiple threat actors to target Signal serve as a warning for the growing threat to secure messaging services and that attacks are certain to intensify in the near-term future.

“There appears to be a clear and growing demand for offensive cyber capabilities that can be used to monitor the sensitive communications of individuals who rely on secure messaging applications to safeguard their online activity,” it said.

Attacks exploit ‘legitimate function’

Users of encrypted communications are not just at risk from phishing and malware attacks, but also from the capability of threat actors to secure access to a target’s device – for example, by breaking the password.

Black said it was insidious that Russian attackers were using a “legitimate function” in Signal to gain access to confidential communications, rather than compromising victims’ phones or breaking the encryption of the app.

“A lot of audiences who are using signal to have sensitive communications need to think about the risk of pairing their device to a second device,” he said.

Signal and Telegram targeted

Russia-aligned groups have also targeted other widely used messaging platforms, including Signal and Telegram.

A Russian hacking group linked to Russia’s FSB intelligence service, known variously as Coldriver, Seaborgium, Callisto and Star Blizzard, shifted its tactics in late 2024 to launch social engineering attacks on people using WhatsApp encrypted messaging.

The group targets MPs, people involved in governments or diplomacy, research and defence policy, and organisations or individuals supporting Ukraine.

As exposed by Computer Weekly in 2022, Star Blizzard previously hacked, compromised and leaked emails and documents belonging to a former head of MI6, alongside other members of a secretive right-wing network devoted to campaigning for an extreme hard Brexit.

Scottish National Party MP Stewart McDonald was another victim of the group. Left wing Freelance journalist Paul Mason, who has frequently criticised Putin’s war against Ukraine, was also targeted by the group and his emails leaked to the Greyzone, a pro-Russian publication in the US.

Academics from the universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Edinburgh, including the late Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering, first published researched in 2023 warning that the desktop versions of Signal and WhatsApp could be compromised if accessed by a border guard or an intimate partner, enabling them to read all future messages.

Signal hardens security

Signal has taken steps to improve the security of its pairing function to alert users to possible attempts to gain access to their accounts through social engineering tactics, following Google’s findings.

Josh Lund, senior technologist at Signal, said the organisation had introduced a number of updates to mitigate potential social engineering and phishing attacks before it was approached by Google.

“Google Threat Intelligence Group provided us with additional information, and we introduced further improvements based on their feedback. We are grateful for their help and close collaboration,” he told Computer Weekly.

Signal has since made further improvements, including overhauling the interface to provide additional alerts when someone links a new device. 

It has also introduced additional authentication steps to prevent anyone other than the owner of the primary device from adding a new linked device. When any new device is linked to a Signal account, the primary device will automatically receive a notification, allowing users to quickly review and remove any unknown or unwanted linked devices.

Google Threat Intelligence Group’s Black advised people the Signal app to think carefully before accepting links to group chats.

“If it’s a contact you know, just create the group yourself directly. Don’t use external links to do things that you can do directly using the messaging application’s features,” he said.

Read more about Russian attacks on Signal on Dan Black’s blog post.

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European and African tech skills programme could increase economic ties

Emerging economies in Africa often have relationships with developed nations through dark colonial pasts, but today, digital tech is connecting previously unexpected partners.

Developed nations looking for growth are targeting Africa as an opportunity, but must offer the countries of the continent something in return, and one programme to transfer IT professionals and knowledge between Africa and the Baltic region is an example that goes beyond filling a skills gap.

As Computer Weekly reported recently, IT professionals in Africa are being connected to tech businesses in the Baltic region as part of a European Commission-funded project, known as the Digital Explorers programme.

Fronted by Lithuania-based think tank Osmos, it aims to address skills shortages in the Baltic tech sector, and increase more business and government engagement between the Baltic nations and African countries.

While countries in the Baltic region, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia lead the world in digital business, they lack people. Estonia, for example, while a leading digital nation, has a population of about 1.3 million.

In contrast, countries like Nigeria are lagging in terms of digital economy, but have large and growing IT talent pools. Nigeria, for example, has a population of about 240 million and growing.

But African countries offer more than a skills pool for Europe to tap, with a huge potential market for its goods and services. It’s hoped connecting people through digital technology initiatives, like Digital Explorers, will initiate cooperation between the two regions.

New skills

It also sees African IT professionals learn new skills that can be used to help the economic development in their home countries.

At the Turing College data science school in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, the Digital Explorers programme has already remotely trained 90 junior to mid-level data analysts from Africa. These trainees then travel to and work in the Baltic region, particularly in its rich tech startup sector. It’s hoped the project will create a model for the wider European Union (EU) region to follow.

Cindy Waweru, aged 24, from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a policy analyst in the city, was invited by the Kenya Private Sector Business Alliance (Kepsa) to take up a role that blended economics with statistical analysis. She had the option of taking up the role in Kenya or Lithuania, and opted for the latter. “Once I saw the Lithuania option, I was pretty intrigued,” she said.

With a degree in economics and statistics from the University of Nairobi, and experience as a policy analyst, Waweru took up a role at research institute Visionary Analytics in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

“Originally I wanted to become a policy analyst and this could give me the opportunity to be a global one,” Waweru told Computer Weekly. “I have an IT background and worked initially as a data specialist in the Kenyan government. This was pretty important for the programme.”

She is currently on a six-month placement at Visionary Analytics in Vilnius. After that, she will either be offered a role in Lithuania or take her learnings back to Kenya.

In Kenya there will be opportunities for Waweru to work either in the tech sector or with tech-enabled organisations.

She said her international experience could open up more opportunities for her in Kenya. There is a growing tech scene in the East African country, she told Computer Weekly. “They call Kenya the Silicon Savannah,” said Waweru.

Kenya needs to emulate some of the strategies adopted in Europe, and Waweru said one of the main differences she has learned is the cooperation between nations. “I have noticed with in Europe generally and in terms of the framework and their policies that they operate within all EU member states,” she said. “We have something like that with the African Union, but a lot of the policies are led to the national governments. Something like intergovernmental working would help a lot in Africa.”

Waweru hopes the programme will build a good reputation for African talent and lead to more European countries taking advantage of their skills to fill gaps in their workforces.

But the programme is about much more than tech skills, with future business ties a major goal for both sets of economies.

Ashley Immanuel, co-founder and chief operating officer at Nigeria-based Semicolon, which trains software engineers and other technology skills, is an ambassador of the Digital Natives programme.

Immanuel said she is increasingly engaging with Baltic tech firms and tech ecosystems, as well as others across Europe.

She said the Nigerian digital tech market has evolved quite quickly over the past 10 to 15 years. “There is activity in terms of technology startups, and then of course the digital transformation of established companies,” said Immanuel. “Historically in Nigeria, obviously oil and gas has been present, but also some of the larger corporates like banks and finance firms.”

She said there is a huge population in Nigeria and that “people are anxious to find good jobs”, but added: “There has historically been a gap because the human capital that’s available here hasn’t been aligned to employer needs, especially for leading technology companies.”

Baltic nations

In contrast, the Baltic nations have small populations and a large tech sector.

Immanuel said both regions have challenges and that Baltic employers and tech companies she has met have listed access to talent as one of their challenges.

She said there is a mutual desire to learn from each other, as well as potential for business partnerships and relationships. On her travels in Europe, there is a lot of interest in working with African companies, she told Computer Weekly.

Immanual agreed that diversity of the IT workforce is also important, with the rapid development of technologies such as AI, and that Africa and the Baltics’ relationship can contribute to increased diversity.

Žilvinas Švedkauskas, managing director at Osmos, said it creates “unexpected country partnerships”.

“We built the project around people, digital explorers and their digital journeys,” he told Computer Weekly. “We create connections that set the path for more business-to-business and government-to-government type of engagement between countries.”

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Volvo to roll out second software-defined electric car

The so-called Superset tech stack, on which carmaker Volvo is building its software-defined cars, is behind the company’s next launch.

The ES90 electric vehicle, which is being unveiled on 5 March, will be the first Volvo car equipped with dual Nvidia Drive AGX Orin hardware, which the company said will raise the bar on safety and overall performance through data, software and artificial intelligence (AI).

As Computer Weekly has previously reported, the Superset tech stack consists of one single set of hardware and software modules, and systems that underpin all upcoming electric cars from Volvo.

It represents what Volvo describes as “a radical transformation” in how it can develop and use software to improve levels of safety, technology and overall performance throughout the car’s lifecycle. “With the Superset tech stack, we can make such improvements more efficiently and roll them out even faster via over-the-air updates and across all models based on the Superset,” Volvo said.

The Nvidia Drive AGX Orin hardware provides 508 trillion operations per second for AI-based active safety features, car sensors and efficient battery management.

Volvo said the hardware will enable its engineers to increase the size of the deep learning model and neural network it uses from 40 million to 200 million parameters. “This will happen over time as we collect more data and continue to develop the model, with the overall goal of improving customer experience and – most importantly – safety levels,” Volvo said.

The Nvidia hardware helps the ES90 to understand its surroundings through an advanced array of sensors, which includes one lidar, five radars, eight cameras and 12 ultrasonic sensors, as well as an advanced driver understanding system inside the car. According to Volvo, these safety systems are designed to help keep you safe by detecting obstacles, even in darkness, and activating proactive safety measures such as collision avoidance. 

Commenting on the hardware and software innovations inside the ES90, Volvo chief engineering and technology officer Anders Bell said: “We innovate in all areas of technology to become a leader in software-defined cars, and we’re channelling all our engineering efforts into one direction: making great cars that get even better over time.

“By combining the power of core computing and our Superset tech stack, we can now make safer cars more efficiently than ever before.”

The ES90 will be the second Volvo built based on the Superset tech stack, and follows on from the EX90, where the stack was first introduced. 

The Superset tech stack will underpin all upcoming Volvo electric cars, which, according to Volvo, means it will be able to boost the performance of each car in its lineup simultaneously. For instance, ES90 customers can benefit from EX90 software upgrades and vice versa.

Volvo positions the Superset stack as an enabler to replace value creation through hardware with a software approach to building value into its customers’ cars.

The Nvidia Drive AGX Orin configuration will also be installed on new EX90 cars, replacing the existing Drive AGX Orin and Drive AGX Xavier hardware. Volvo said existing customers of the EX90 will get an upgrade of their cars free of charge.

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DC01UK’s plan to build ‘Europe’s biggest AI datacentre’ wins local council approval

A plan to build a £3.75bn hyperscale datacentre on a plot of green belt land neighbouring the South Mimms Service Station in Hertfordshire has secured local authority approval, despite more than 900 objections to the build being filed.

The project is being overseen by a development company known as DC01UK, which applied to Hertsmere Borough Council in September 2024 for outline planning permission.

The council has now rubber-stamped DC01UK’s application for outline planning permission, which means it considers the company’s plans for the site to be an acceptable use of the land in principle.

As detailed on the council’s planning portal, 929 objections were raised about the project, while a further 503 were submitted in support of DC01UK’s plans.

“We want to thank Hertsmere Borough Council for their open and pragmatic approach to DC01UK’s plans. They understand our ambition for both the project and the borough. It will bring huge benefits for local people through a stronger local economy, more skilled jobs and better opportunities,” said a DC01UK spokesperson.

“Our plan will put Hertfordshire at the epicentre of the new datacentre revolution, as well as creating £3.75bn for the economy during construction and almost 14,000 indirect jobs once operational.”

As detailed in the planning documents, DC01UK is not an operator of datacentres, but looks set to market the site as having potential to develop it into a datacentre now that outline planning permission has been secured.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, it was confirmed in September 2024 that several parties have already been in discussions with DC01UK about the possibility of taking over the site to build a hyperscale datacentre on it tailored to their specific needs.

Even so, DC01UK has previously claimed the site will be home to Europe’s largest cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) datacentre once it is completed.

The news also comes hot on the heels of the government publishing its 50-point AI opportunities action plan policy paper, which outlines how it plans to ensure the use of AI technologies becomes more pervasive across the UK.

In support of this, the government has committed to taking steps to increase the availability of AI-ready compute capacity across the UK by lowering the planning barriers to new datacentre builds.

Minister for telecoms Chris Bryant MP said datacentres are the “beating hearts of this modern age” and are something society can “no longer live without”.

He added: “Datacentres like this will not only play a pivotal role in the AI opportunities action plan, but drive economic growth through the creation of skilled jobs across the south-east.”

Stephen Beard, head of datacentres at real estate advisory Knight Frank, which consulted with DC01UK on the project, described the build as “the first of its kind”.

“[It will be] the largest datacentre development in Europe in the world’s second-largest market, which is perfectly positioned in its ability to service the ever-increasing cloud demand today whilst accommodating the AI needs of tomorrow,” he said.

“A first and great example of the UK’s shift towards becoming a dominant superpower in cloud, AI and general digital infrastructure.” 

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Cyber incident that closed British Museum was inside job

A disgruntled insider appears to have been behind a security incident at the British Museum, which forced the 270-year-old institution to partially close its doors over the weekend of 25 and 26 January following disruption to core IT systems.

The incident shuttered two of the museum’s ongoing special exhibitions, one on the history of the ancient Silk Road trading network connecting Asia and Europe, and one on the prints of Pablo Picasso, after key systems including the museum’s ticketing platform were disrupted.

“An IT contractor who was dismissed last week trespassed into the museum and shut down several of our systems,” a spokesperson for the museum said. “Police attended and he was arrested at the scene.

“With regret, our temporary exhibitions were closed over the weekend – ticket holders were alerted and refunds offered.”

The British Museum told Computer Weekly that all of its exhibitions and facilities have now reopened.

London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed its officers attended the museum on the evening of Thursday 23 January and arrested an unnamed man in his 50s on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage. The individual has since been released on bail.

Since the cyber incident did not appear to involve any element of cyber criminal hacking or malware, its long-term impact is unlikely to be as significant as similar attacks against other cultural institutions, such as the autumn 2022 Rhysida ransomware attack on the British Library – from which it’s still recovering.

In this instance, the British Museum appears to have experienced minimal impact, with the disruption apparently limited merely to that caused by unscheduled downtime

Nevertheless, it behoves all organisations to pay close attention to the potential for IT disruption arising from insider actions as their impacts can be wide-ranging, and costly.

Indeed, according to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a data breach report, when compared against other cyber attack vectors, attacks by malicious insiders tend to result in higher recovery costs, close to $5m (£4m) on average, although such attacks represented only 7% of the total seen in the report data.

Risk management

It’s also important to factor insider threats into cyber risk planning activities as such incidents can be very difficult to detect. This is because malicious insiders often look like ordinary users and typically do not reveal themselves until the minute they carry out their attack, at which point the damage is done.

This is in contrast to ransomware attacks, for example, in which organisations with appropriate threat-hunting measures and network monitoring in place can sometimes detect the warning signs of an impending incident, and take steps to thwart them.

“Cyber security arrangements must be agile and constantly updated to keep up with the evolving threat landscape,” said SonicWall executive EMEA vice-president Spencer Starkey.

“This requires a proactive and flexible approach to cyber security, which includes regular security assessments, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, and incident response planning,” he said.

“It also requires ongoing training and awareness programmes to ensure that employees are aware of the latest threats and best practices for cyber security,” said Starkey.

“By maintaining agile and up-to-date cyber security arrangements, companies can minimise their risk exposure, detect and respond to threats more effectively, and maintain the trust and confidence of their customers and stakeholders.”

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Turbulent times ahead for tech

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28 January 2025

Turbulent times ahead for tech

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In this week’s Computer Weekly, the World Economic Forum in Davos highlighted growing risks to digital supply chains – we examine the turbulence ahead. Data sovereignty is becoming a growing issue as companies move to the cloud – we look at the regulatory challenges. And we analyse the best practices in automated patch management. Read the issue now.

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New Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 rumor suggests they could end up being great budget buys

  • New rumor suggests Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 won’t need a 12VHPWR power connector
  • Should make upgrading a lot easier
  • If you have a 650W PSU or higher, you should also be fine

It looks like the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 graphics cards could prove to be even better value for money than initially thought, as a new rumor suggests that the mid-range graphics cards won’t require Nvidia’s 12VHPWR connector (which the powerful RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 use).

Instead, as VideoCardz reports, a new rumor from Brother Pan Talks Computers (BPTC) claims that the two upcoming GPUs will use standard 8-pin power connectors. BPTC is a Chinese website that appears to have inside knowledge about Zotac, a components company that makes (among other things) third-party GPUs. While this is still an unconfirmed rumor, there could be some truth to it.

The same rumor suggests that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 graphics cards will require 650W power supply units (PSUs), much less than the RTX 5080’s 850W PSU demands.

The 4 8-pin to 16-pin 12VHPWR adapter included with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Less to upgrade, less to spend

If this all seems like a load of numbers and jargon – don’t worry. Essentially, if this rumor is correct, it should be good news for people considering the RTX 5060 Ti or RTX 5060, as it looks like you won’t have to upgrade your PSU or buy any new cables.

This will make upgrading to the GPUs easier and less expensive because if you did need to upgrade your PSU to support the new GPUs, you’d need to spend extra money – and because the PSU is used to power various parts of your PC, swapping it out can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience – trust me.

As with previous xx60 GPUs, like the RTX 4060 and RTX 3060, the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 will likely be aimed at budget-conscious gamers, so the fact they will likely not need to buy a new PSU will undoubtedly be welcome. Further, it would certainly make them a good value pick (assuming the price, which hasn’t been confirmed, is correct).

Of course, there are caveats to this. First, this is all rumor and speculation, so we won’t know for sure until Nvidia gives us more information about these cards (a recent rumor suggests they’ll launch in March).

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Also, as VideoCardz points out, if the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 will indeed require a 650W PSU, that is a bump up from the 550W requirements of the RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti. This means that some people might still need to upgrade their PSU to use these GPUs, and that will drastically reduce the value proposition for those gamers.

Hopefully, we’ll find out soon when Nvidia provides more information about these hotly-anticipated GPUs, especially as the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 have sold out and are hard to find.

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Concerns over Fujitsu billing application used at SSE Airtricity in Republic of Ireland

Fujitsu has been forced to escalate problems with a key IT system used by Airtricity in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) to avoid potentially impacting the energy company’s customers, Computer Weekly has learned.

Fears over the billing application developed for SSE Airtricity RoI by Fujitsu have raised alarms in Fujitsu’s leadership.

According to a source, the issues should have been fixed as part of a Fujitsu initiative, known as Project Ivy, launched after the Post Office Horizon scandal, which seeks to tackle critical software defects, and improve testing and governance across its systems. “It has had to be escalated for urgent attention before it does real harm to customers,” they said.

Fujitsu said it’s reviewing its software for potential problems in response to the Post Office Horizon scandal. In his fifth witness statement to the scandal public inquiry, Paul Patterson, the CEO of Fujitsu in Europe, stated that the company is addressing the remediation of systems and technology under the Rebuilding Trust Programme.

After multiple attempts by Computer Weekly, Fujitsu refused to comment on the alleged problems with its application. SSE Airtricity said: “The other SSE Airtricity services which utilise the all island billing system supplied by Hansen and the proprietary system supported by Fujitsu include the Republic of Ireland business. There are no issues related to system performance which are materially impacting customers.”

There is no suggestion the Hansen system is causing the issues. According to the source, “the billing application is separate from Hansen’s billing system but integrates with it, processing key data before passing it on for billing and account reconciliation”.

The source told Computer Weekly that Fujitsu is concerned, and that the issue has been escalated to Fujitsu in Japan.

Airtricity would not comment on whether Fujitsu is addressing these issues, stating that “any queries regarding Fujitsu business operations should be directed to the company itself”, but Fujitsu refused to comment, citing customer confidentiality.

In March 2024, Fujitsu closed down its Republic of Ireland business for new business after a review of the operation’s performance and market outlook, with the contract with SSE Airtricity transferred to the UK business.

“It is with regret that we have taken a difficult decision and plan not to pursue new business in the Irish office,” the email stated. “Going forward, Fujitsu plans to refocus its Irish operations on the fulfilment of existing customer contractual commitments.”

Long-term partners

Fujitsu and Airtricity have a long relationship, with Fujitsu playing a key role in its operations across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Fujitsu developed and integrated a Customer Information System (CIS), automated billing and customer communication processes and managed the system integration and selection of IT suppliers.

In December 2023, a senior SSE Airtricity employee in RoI publicly praised Fujitsu’s role in supporting its operations, presenting a Certificate of Excellence to the IT development team on behalf of SSE Airtricity’s business and IT customer support teams.

The billing application concerns come months after Centrica chose not to award a deal worth about £45m to Fujitsu, citing concerns about the reputational damage stemming from its involvement in the Post Office scandal.

CRM migration issues

Separately, last year, problems were experienced by SSE Airtricity customers when a CRM software migration caused service issues in Northern Ireland. The source told Computer Weekly: “The CRM migration was part SSE Airtricity RoI’s Project Genesis programme, which included upgrading core billing and CRM systems.”

Local reports described problems, which were unrelated to Fujitsu, being experienced by customers in Northern Ireland. SSE Airtricity said this happened during a CRM system migration.

In November, The Belfast Telegraph reported that SSE Airtricity had sent elderly and vulnerable residents in a social housing development gas bills despite them not having gas boilers installed, and this continued even after the company was told as much.

Airtricity said the issues in Northern Ireland have been resolved. “SSE Airtricity Gas Northern Ireland undertook a CRM system migration to a new platform which was completed in May 2024 for all gas customers in Northern Ireland,” said an SSE Airtricity spokesperson. “We took a phased approach to migrating customers to the platform in order to minimise disruption. While some customers experienced service issues as the systems bedded in, these have since been resolved.”

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EU law could usher in transformative change to digital ecosystems

In October 2024, the European Commission (EC) published its Digital fairness fitness check report as part of a continued effort to evaluate the effectiveness of European Union (EU) legislation with consumer protection laws.

Specifically, it evaluated the efficacy of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, the Consumer Rights Directive, and the Unfair Contract Terms Directive.

The report revealed these existing laws “have only partially achieved the objectives of providing a high level of consumer protection”, with harmful commercial practices online costing EU consumers at least €7.9bn per year, and further drew attention to the power and information imbalances between businesses and consumers online. Now, its findings are being used to shape the latest development in tech policy in Europe, the Digital Fairness Act (DFA).

Following the report, president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen wrote to Michael McGrath, the EU’s commissioner for consumer protection, to urge his successor to develop a Digital Fairness Act.

The mission letter outlined five core problematic practices in consumer-facing apps and online platforms today; including “dark patterns”, addictive design, personalised targeting features, problematic commercial practices of social media influencers, and features that make it excessively difficult to cancel digital subscriptions. 

Recent legislation such as the UK’s Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) have aimed to address some of the illegal and harmful online practices that persist online, but a Digital Fairness Act could potentially tackle some of the more pervasive technological tools that have been adopted by tech companies and digital platforms to persuade and engage consumers.

For example, a study conducted by the EC in 2022 found that 97% of the most popular websites and apps used by EU consumers use at least one dark pattern, which are manipulative interface designs and functionalities which undermine informed consent and mislead users.

Similarly, the European Consumer Organisation’s (BEUC) consumer survey in September 2023 revealed that the majority of consumers feel personal data analysis and monetisation is unfair (60%), and less than half (43%) do not feel fully in control of the decisions they make or the content they are shown online.

With the DFA currently in its proposal phase, civil society organisations and campaigners are putting forward their suggestions to the European Commission. Many civil society organisations across Europe are hopeful that the act will tackle some of the most exploitative techniques that have been fundamental to the tech industry’s growth, and which they believe are responsible for many of the harms that digital users face today. 

Fairness by design

European Digital Rights (EDRi) is the largest European network of organisations defending rights and freedoms online, and are working on a position paper with their members on the DFA. They hope that the act will address exploitative practices often employed by Big Tech and ad tech intermediaries, which they say “exploit users’ vulnerabilities, undermine their autonomy, and disproportionately impact marginalised communities”.

One area of focus they have for the DFA is to ensure it adopts a rights-centred approach that recognises digital users not just as consumers, but as people with broader individual and collective rights.

“A core assumption underpinning this approach is that vulnerability is inherent to the digital realm as we know it today, driven by an imbalance of power and significant information asymmetries,” says Itxaso Dominguez, a policy adviser at EDRi.

To address these challenges, EDRi are advocating for embedding principles of “fairness by design” and “fairness by default” into the act. They hope this will ensure that fairness and respect for fundamental rights are integral to the development and operation of digital platforms and services, rather than optional considerations. 

Superrr Lab, an organisation advocating for just digital futures, recently published a position paper titled Digital fairness – shaping consumer protection in a just and future-proof way.

They too echo the desire for fairness by design and by default to be enshrined in the act: “The DFA will be most effective in truly enhancing digital rights if it addresses the root-causes of power imbalances in the digital realm. Consumers are humans with rights beyond markets and consumer protection law, and an effective DFA, should be shaped accordingly to ensure true digital fairness – in the sense of no discriminatory practices and opportunities for participation.”

The addictive nature of social media platforms is another digital design feature that the act could address, and an area where there is increasing public scrutiny, particularly in relation to its effects on children and young people’s mental wellbeing. Challenging this feature through policy could potentially address one of the main tenets of the industry’s extractive business model. 

“Commissioner for justice Michael McGrath has said it plainly: ‘They want to keep people online constantly, including our children, and this is how to get money from advertising’,” Rosie Morgan-Stuart, campaign and policy consultant for People Vs Big Tech, said. “Meanwhile, the evidence of harm is mounting. Binding rules are clearly needed, given the severity of the risks and Big Tech’s repeated refusal to prioritise safety over profit.”

Enforcement and real accountability

Better enforcement is another core ambition for the DFA. The Digital fairness fitness check report drew attention to the pervasive non-compliance popular among tech companies and social media platforms, and the need for real accountability. Earlier in 2024, the European Commission opened proceedings against Meta, Alphabet and Apple over their failure to effectively comply with their obligations under the existing Digital Markets Act (DMA).

“To make a real difference, the Digital Fairness Act needs to set out clear rules that are easy to understand, to apply and – if necessary – to enforce. Unfortunately, current EU law does not provide sufficient legal certainty in relation to unfair commercial practices online and therefore does not adequately protect consumers,” says Urs Buscke, senior legal officer at BEUC.

EDRi echo the need for more robust enforcement mechanisms and the prohibition of manipulative practices outright, rather than relying on voluntary compliance mechanisms, which have historically failed.

Aside from voluntary compliance mechanisms, gaps in enforcement have also persisted due to the fact that the existing directives covered by the fitness check do not contain any reporting obligations.

An ambitious digital future: breaking up Big Tech

Some believe the DFA could potentially break up the monopolies within the tech industry seen across some of the Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), which the DSA defines as platforms or search engines that have more than 45 million users per month in the EU. Instead, they advocate for a digital ecosystem that allows independent, third-party content curation and moderation services. 

“Unbundling the social networks could address many of the harms connected to addictive design and predatory data surveillance by providing consumers with a marketplace of options for recommender systems and other content curation tools,” says Katarzyna Szymielewicz, co-founder of freedom and privacy NGO Panoptykon Foundation. “This would also address the problematic nature of relying on VLOPs themselves as the arbiters of quality and credibility in ranking algorithms.”

On 16 January 2025, 18 former European presidents and prime ministers wrote to Von der Leyen urging the EC to pursue a structural breaking up of Google’s services to restore competition and end Google’s monopoly. 

“Forced breakups are do-able and have a long and distinguished record through modern history – from John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil in 1911, to Germany’s gigantic IG Farben conglomerate after the Second World War, to AT&T in 1982,” says Claire Godfrey, executive director of Balanced Economy Project.

“They’ve just fallen out of favour. The US has proposed a break up of Google to fix the search monopoly, and the EU is in a position to support the US and break the tech giant’s monopoly over digital advertising. It needs the political will and courage more than anything.”

Despite the challenges, many of those Computer Weekly spoke with said the DFA could potentially result in transformative changes to the modern digital ecosystem. “The Digital Fairness Act offers a rare opportunity to set a global precedent, ensuring that fairness, transparency and accountability are embedded into the foundations of the digital ecosystem,” says Dominguez.

But this will only happen if policymakers strive to be bold. As Kim Van Spaarentak, GroenLinks MEP, urges: “We don’t have to accept the status quo. We can still fix our online environments if we dare to be ambitious enough. Alternatives are perfectly possible.

“If ethical design becomes the standard, the online space can be a fantastic place for knowledge-sharing, community forming and creativity. But whether the EU dares to go far enough is the big question for the next few years.”

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