Articles about UK

The EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) comes into force tomorrow (Jan 17th) but new research shows that 43 percent of the UK's financial organizations are set to miss the deadline for compliance, with 20 percent expecting to do so by at least four months.

Although the UK is outside the EU its strong financial ties with Europe mean firms operating in or interacting with EU markets will need to align with DORA standards to continue their business relationships.

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Almost every single organization, large or small, is acutely aware of the need to implement robust security measures. However, this is easier said than done. As the threat landscape continues to evolve, only heightened by tools such as AI, it can be difficult to stay ahead and ensure appropriate security measures are in place. There are a lot of security tools out there, and many organizations have tried to implement security measures and are now overwhelmed with an influx of information trying to figure out how best to manage it.

However, though it may not be the easiest task, it’s certainly one worth doing right. So, as we move into 2025, what are the main trends that organizations need to be aware of and how can they use this knowledge to stay protected?

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Smaller businesses are just as vulnerable to cybersecurity issues as larger ones, more so in some cases as they have fewer resources to devote to protection.

New research from UK cloud services firm Six Degrees looks at the concerns of UK SMEs. It finds 35 percent cite AI-related threats as their top concern, outranking malware (25 percent), scams and other fraud (25 percent), phishing (25 percent), and ransomware (23 percent).

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Artificial intelligence will be unleashed across the UK to deliver a decade of national renewal under a new plan announced by the government.

The Prime Minister has agreed to take forward all 50 recommendations set out in the AI Opportunities Action Plan released last year, in a plan to make the UK ‘irresistible’ to AI firms looking to start, scale, or grow their business.

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2024 has been a year of seismic change in the UK, what with a new government coming into power and a budget that will undoubtedly impact the UK’s small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 2025. So, as we look ahead to next year, what technology trends will lead?

We see several dominant trends: a larger proportion of the workforce returning to the office, the increasing adoption of AI, and a heightened focus on security. Additionally, data sovereignty issues will come to the forefront as organizations worry about where their data resides, and ever-growing compliance requirements will become a business necessity -- no matter the organization's size.

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A new report finds that 35 percent of small business employees or owners report clicking on a phishing link via mobile.

The research, carried out by OnePoll for CyberSmart, among 250 small-medium enterprise business owners or leaders in the UK also finds 30 percent of respondents report losing or having had stolen a mobile phone containing sensitive corporate information, leaving their business more vulnerable to potential cybercriminal activity.

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A new survey from software delivery platform Harness finds that 66 percent of UK consumers think software companies releasing 'bad' code that causes mass outages is on par with, or worse than, supermarkets selling contaminated products that break laws on food safety.

The study of 2,000 UK consumers, conducted by Opinium Research, finds that 44 percent have been affected by an IT outage. 26 percent were impacted by the recent incident caused by a software update from CrowdStrike in July 2024.

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A new survey of 2,000 people in the UK for the International Cyber Expo shows that 72 percent believe that cyberwarfare is likely to be the next step in modern combat.

Over half of people (52 percent) said they believe cyberwarfare may be the next step in warfare combined with physical tactics.

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The Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec) is announcing the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing modules to its CyberEPQ qualification for all students from September 2024 onwards.

Available to any student over the age of 14 in the UK, the CyberEPQ (Extended Project Qualification) is aimed at bringing new and diverse talent into the industry, representing an ideal stepping stone into a cybersecurity career.

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Data centers powering the UK economy will be designated as Critical National Infrastructure alongside energy and water systems under new government plans.

This is the first Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) designation in almost a decade, since the space and defense sectors gained the same status in 2015.

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Following the July 2024 CrowdStrike IT outages, over 78 percent of people in the UK now worry about the heavy reliance of global organizations on IT systems and software providers.

A new survey of 2,000 UK adults by One Poll for Nineteen Group, organizers of the International Cyber Expo shows that 44 percent of respondents were in some way impacted by the outages. 18 percent were affected themselves and 26 percent knew someone who was.

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In the last few years, we have witnessed some of the most seismic changes to the IT security landscape -- from global pandemics and geopolitical issues to a global energy crisis, growing cybersecurity threats, multiple country elections, and subdued economic conditions. But regardless of stretched IT and cybersecurity budgets, and a significant IT skills shortage, threat actors continue to innovate as cyber threats evolve at breakneck speed. Organizations have no choice but to defend themselves.

Today, cyberattacks are increasingly targeting small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to JumpCloud’s latest Q3 2024 SME IT Trends Report. Forty-four percent of UK SMEs have been victims of cybersecurity attacks. Nearly two-thirds (60 percent) report multiple attacks in 2024. Smaller organizations often lack the manpower of larger corporations, with nearly half (48 percent) of UK survey respondents claiming that despite their best efforts, they lack the resources and staff to secure their organization against cybersecurity threats. This is compounded by a lack of access to skilled cybersecurity professionals, with many SMEs having IT teams consisting of only one or two people.

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Changing your broadband service provider has always been a hassle. Usually it takes around 10 days, not to mention that you have to put up with phone calls and emails from your old supplier offering you better deals and pleading with you not to go.

For people in the UK, however, things are about to get a whole lot simpler. The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo) is a non-profit organization that has set up a messaging platform called the TOTSCo Hub.

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The UK government has announced the launch of a new scheme that will encourage the building of new generative AI tools to help teachers when they’re planning lessons or marking homework.

This will involve the creation of a 'data store' for education data including the national curriculum, guidance for teachers, lesson plans and more. The £3m ($3.96m) data store will help tech companies build AI tools that teachers can trust to help in their work by making this data machine readable.

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Britain is plagued by sluggish productivity, with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reporting UK productivity growth as 'anaemic' for the past 15 years. And things are getting worse, not better.

In London -- the country's largest and richest regional economy -- output per hour worked has fallen by 2.7 percent between 2019 and 2022. But what is the root cause of this underwhelming growth?

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