We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.

We are seeing more and more reports of school ransomware attacks, and it is concerning to see that hackers appear to be targeting this specific sector of civilisation.
Anyone who has lost control of their personal information could be entitled to pursue a claim for data breach compensation now.
Your Lawyers – as leading Data Leak Lawyers – represent thousands of people for data breach cases and have already recovered over £1m in damages for mostly individual clients. Having been working in this area of law for a great deal longer than most other data firms out there, our experience speaks for itself.

An analysis of regional statistics for data breaches singled out Cambridgeshire as the region to suffer the sharpest peak in cybercrime incidents. Covering 20 regions of the UK for the period of 2016-18, the data from the Office for National Statistics reportedly led to Cambridgeshire being labelled the UK’s “data breach capital”, according to IT Pro. It is unclear why the number of data breaches in Cambridgeshire may have risen so significantly in this period.
Whilst Thames Valley reportedly recorded the highest number of attacks, Cambridgeshire was branded with the fastest rate of increases as well as the largest total for its population. The figures raise questions about why Cambridgeshire may have succumbed to so many data breaches in 2020, and what this peak tells us about general trends in cybercrime.
Your Lawyers, as leading specialists in data breach claims, are keen to see cyber threats being closely monitored. However, it is important that these statistics are used effectively as a way of pushing for improvements to cybersecurity and data protection policies. These figures should not just be meaningless numbers – they should be a means of holding data controllers accountable.

A suspected Dorset Council data breach has been reported in the media at the back end of 2021, although little is known yet about the finer details of the incident.
We know that the matter has been reported to the regulators, and that apologies have been made. If personal and sensitive information has been misused or exposed, this could cause significant distress to anyone affected.
Your Lawyers, as leading Data Leak Lawyers, are used to representing people for council data breach compensation cases. Anyone affected by such an incident can access free, no-obligation legal advice from our expert team here now.

Safestyle UK cyberattack: media reports say a ransomware attack could affect some 400,000 customers, with hackers demanding 4m pounds in Bitcoin.
We look to be in the midst of yet another major cyberattack here in the UK. Safestyle looks to be joining the long list of other companies that include TalkTalk, Equifax, British Airways, Ticketmaster, easyJet, and others who have been involved in events where personal information has been exposed.
We represent thousands of clients for privacy breach cases, including against the companies named above. We are now closely monitoring developments in this latest cyberattack that has been announced over last weekend.

Today, 28th January 2022, marks Data Privacy Day 2022. This international day of awareness is about promoting the ideas of best practice and safety for the data protection laws we have in place to be effective.
Now, as expert data privacy compensation lawyers, we can only do so much when it comes to helping with advice about preventing an incident. Our specialism really lies in what people can do after their personal information has been misused or exposed, and there is plenty that we can do for you.
It is important for the team here at Your Lawyers, as a leading firm of privacy compensation solicitors, to discuss people’s legal rights on this Data Privacy Day 2022. There is much that we can do to help people now.

It has been reported that a Clearview AI fine in the sum of £17m is being considered by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over allegations that serious data breaches have occurred.
The issue is about the collection of public images and how they have been used by the company as part of facial recognition technology that it offers. The ICO has suggested that the processing of the public information may not be as expected by data subjects, and it may be deemed as unfair. The company disputes that they have done anything wrong and has pointed out that the images they use are already available in the public domain.
This could be a substantial fine if it is issued, and the question over whether the data processing of the information in question was lawful or not could be a contentious one.

Leading Data and Privacy Law firm Your Lawyers have been concerned to learn of an investigation into plans to sell Covid test samples for medical research.
The news was broken in November 2021, and reportedly involves Cignpost Diagnostics, trading as ExpressTest, who are understood to have conducted almost three million tests. It has been suggested that there are plans by the company to analyse samples from swabs and sell data to third parties, according to inews.
The private company is an approved provider of testing, and it has been reported that the company is now being investigated by the UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). There was understood to be a tick box as part of the purchasing process for the test that formed as part of a large privacy policy with links to a research programme. This is understood to have since been removed and appears to be the matter at the centre of the investigation.

The recently reportedly Acorn Stairlifts cyberattack appears to have been an attempt to break into the company’s systems using malware, media reports confirm.
It is not yet known as to whether any information has been exposed or stolen, but the systems that were affected are understood to be back working again.
This is yet another cyberattack that has caused huge disruption, which is a growing trend and has been especially prevalent during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

There has been a Wealden Council data breach incident that is understood to have allowed a resident to access the private and personal information of other people.
Due to what appears to be an access error, some particularly personal and sensitive information has ended up exposed. The council has apologised for the incident but, for those affected, the damage may already have been done.
Your Lawyers, as leading Data Leak Lawyers, see these kinds of events all the time, and we are more than used to representing the victims for compensation cases.

In a data breach earlier this year involving Trafford Council, the personal information of residents had been publicly exposed. Personal details were reportedly taken as part of a resident survey, but the private information was understood to have not been redacted when the council sent a Freedom of Information request response to another resident.
Errors such as this seem to have become a common trait of council data breaches, with employees making needless mistakes that could be corrected with a few checks, and with greater attention to the appropriate procedures. Overall, the trend of human error data breaches at local authorities would suggest that there are inherent problems when it comes to data protection.
A lack of awareness in respect of data protection and cybersecurity is simply unacceptable in this day and age, in which the digitisation of personal information has the potential to make it a more accessible target for cybercriminals. While organisations bear the overall responsibility for compliance with data protection law, individual employees also have a role to play in eliminating data security risks.
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