ZeroHour

Source: The Register · Security

14 stories in the last 30d

Ofcom discovers issuing Online Safety Act fines is easier than collecting them

Ofcom says most Online Safety Act fines totaling over £7 million remain unpaid as platforms structure businesses to evade collection.

Ofcom director of enforcement Suzanne Cater told the House of Lords that the majority of fines issued under the UK Online Safety Act remain uncollected despite over £7 million in penalties on 11 providers. The regulator's largest fine was £1.4 million against 8579 LLC in February. Ofcom is running six enforcement programs and 40 formal investigations covering more than 100 services, including Telegram, TikTok and X, and is working with the UK government to strengthen its enforcement powers.

CISA decides weekly vulnerability bulletin isn't necessary anymore

CISA will discontinue its weekly vulnerability bulletin on September 28, pushing users toward KEV, alerts, and CVE data under risk-based prioritization.

CISA announced its weekly vulnerability bulletin will stop on Monday, September 28, as part of a shift from static CVSS severity scores to a modern, risk-based approach detailed in a June Binding Operational Directive. The directive prioritizes federal remediation based on exposure, exploitation evidence, control granted by exploitation, and whether exploitation can be automated. CISA directs bulletin subscribers to rely instead on its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, cybersecurity alerts and advisories, and the CVE catalog, requiring users to enable those subscriptions in GovDelivery or Granicus to avoid missing critical notices.

The Register · Security · 17h agoPolicy & legal

Swiss court sentences 52-year-old Ukrainian ransomware dev to nearly 13 years in the cooler

Zurich court sentences Ukrainian ransomware developer to 12 years, 9 months for LockerGoga, MegaCortex and Nefilim attacks including Stadler Rail.

Zurich District Court sentenced a 52-year-old Ukrainian to 12 years and 9 months for developing LockerGoga, MegaCortex, and Nefilim ransomware, plus a 10-year ban from Switzerland; the verdict can be appealed. The operations hit over 1,800 victims across 71 countries with losses of several hundred million Swiss francs, including Stadler Rail (2020, $6 million Nefilim demand), Meier Tobler, and Crealogix. Alleged mastermind Volodymyr Tymoshchuk, indicted in the US and tied to at least 250 companies including Norsk Hydro, remains at large with an $11 million FBI bounty.

The Register · Security · 2d agoPolicy & legal

UK.gov begins killing off passwords for 23 million users

UK government rolls out passkeys to 23 million GOV.UK One Login users, saving £600 daily in SMS costs and resisting phishing.

The UK government is expanding passkey sign-in across GOV.UK One Login for more than 23 million users after a trial with over 300,000 people. Nearly one in ten daily One Login sign-ins already use passkeys, which the government says are up to eight times faster than password plus 2FA code. The switch saves taxpayers nearly £600 per day in SMS costs, and the NCSC is encouraging adoption while passwords remain optional.

The Register · Security · 3d agoPolicy & legal

Ukrainian lawyer's second career as a Conti coder earns him 4 years behind bars

Ukrainian lawyer turned Conti malware coder sentenced to four years in US prison, ordered to forfeit $25,042 in Bitcoin.

Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, 44, a trained lawyer who joined Conti under the handle "henry", pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to four years. He coded a malware loader, researched targets using Google and ZoomInfo, and possessed data stolen from eight US victims who reported over $1.5 million in losses. Investigators found Cobalt Strike running and a Rocket.Chat session over Tor on his laptop when Gardaí arrested him in County Cork, Ireland in July 2023; he was extradited to the US in October 2025. Conti attacked over 1,000 victims across 47 US states and 31 countries, with payouts exceeding $150 million by January 2022.

The Register · Securityupdated · 5d agofirst · 6d agoPolicy & legal 7 sources

EU's Cyber Resilience Act starts the 24-hour vulnerability clock

EU Cyber Resilience Act reporting rules take effect, requiring manufacturers to disclose actively exploited vulnerabilities to ENISA within 24 hours, with fines reaching €15 million.

The Cyber Resilience Act's Article 14 mandatory reporting duties became applicable, requiring makers of products with digital elements sold in the EU — regardless of where they are based — to file an early warning within 24 hours of becoming aware of an actively exploited vulnerability, a detailed notification within 72 hours, and a final report within 14 days of releasing a fix. Reports must be submitted through ENISA's Single Reporting Platform to the designated CSIRT, and non-compliance with these core duties can trigger fines up to €15 million or 2.5 percent of annual turnover. Manufacturers must also inform affected users of available fixes without undue delay, and most remaining CRA provisions, including mandatory SBOMs and security-by-design requirements, become applicable on December 11, 2027.

The Register · Security · 6d agoPolicy & legal

UK food supply chain at risk from hostile attacks

The UK National Audit Office warns cyber-attacks are a major threat to food supply chains, urging Defra to strengthen incident preparedness with industry.

A National Audit Office report names cyber-attacks among the major threats to the UK food supply chain and urges Defra to work with industry and test emergency plans with local government. The report cites 2025 attacks on retailers: Marks & Spencer estimated around £136 million ($177.2 million) in costs, and the Co-op confirmed data theft from 6.5 million members. The NAO found cyber-attacks raised operating costs and disrupted core digital systems, and Defra has run food-sector cyber incident exercises since 2023.

The Register · Security · 10d agoPolicy & legal

Peers ask why UK cyber bill leaves execs off the personal liability hook

UK peers propose amendments to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill adding personal executive liability and board-level cyber responsibility; government defends fines-only approach.

Baronesses Kidron and Ludford backed amendments to the UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill that would introduce personal civil liability for senior executives and mandate board-level cybersecurity responsibility, citing NIS2 and financial-sector accountability rules. Cybersecurity minister Baroness Lloyd defended the bill's existing regime of fines up to £17 million or 4% of annual turnover, with governance requirements to come via secondary legislation. Peers also debated the bill's 24-hour and 72-hour incident reporting requirements, with Baroness Harding proposing an additional 14-day intermediate report and a one-month final report.

The Register · Security · 10d agoPolicy & legal

UK's Online Safety Act has made 'absolutely no difference,' kids say

UK Children's Commissioner tells Lords committee the Online Safety Act has 'made absolutely no difference' and criticizes Ofcom over risk assessment transparency.

England's Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza testified that more than a year after key Online Safety Act child-protection duties took effect, children report no meaningful change in accessing harmful content. She criticized Ofcom for refusing to share companies' safety risk assessments under section 393(1) of the Communications Act 2003, and planned to use statutory powers to compel disclosure. She argued the OSA has not kept pace with AI-driven harms (citing the 'Grok nudifying' controversy) and urged Ofcom to 'use its teeth,' contrasting the UK's approach with Meta's proposed $18 billion US child-safety settlement.

The Register · Security · 14d agoPolicy & legal1

Turns out Brits would quite like their private messages to stay private

Polling shows two-thirds of Brits distrust any government, current or future, with access to their encrypted chats.

Polling reported by The Register finds two-thirds of Britons do not trust the current government, or any future one, with access to their encrypted chats. The result adds public-sentiment context to UK debates over lawful access to end-to-end encrypted messaging. No incident, vulnerability, or legislation is described in the excerpt.

The Register · Security · 18d agoPolicy & legal

US government snitch-finder pleads guilty to leaking state secrets to foreign spies

A Defense Intelligence Agency insider threat specialist pleaded guilty to leaking state secrets to a foreign government shortly after joining the Insider Threat Division.

An IT specialist assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency's Insider Threat Division has pleaded guilty to leaking state secrets to a foreign government. According to The Register, the individual began contacting the foreign government within days of being assigned to the division. The case underscores insider risk in an unit tasked with detecting exactly such behavior.

The Register · Security · 19d agoPolicy & legal

CISA: Most exploited vulnerabilities should have been eradicated decades ago

CISA says most exploited vulnerabilities are decades-old flaws, blaming organizational culture and weak Secure by Design adoption.

CISA assesses that the vulnerabilities most exploited in the wild are old flaws that should have been eradicated decades ago. The agency attributed the problem to organizational culture and systemic gaps in Secure by Design adoption. The Register's coverage frames the remarks as renewed pressure on vendors and operators to eliminate long-standing weaknesses.

The Register · Security · 20d agoPolicy & legal in the wild

Australian cops cuff alleged TeamPCP masterminds

Australian police, with FBI assistance, arrested the alleged masterminds behind the Shai-Hulud worm and related supply chain attacks.

Australian law enforcement, working with the FBI, arrested suspects alleged to be the masterminds behind the Shai-Hulud worm and other software supply chain attacks. The group is referred to as TeamPCP. The report did not specify charges, the number of suspects arrested, or affected victims.

The Register · Security · 20d agoPolicy & legal

Nuisance-call blocker fined £190k for being a nuisance caller

UK regulators fined Elderly Aids £190,000 after the firm made 758,000 unwanted calls yearly selling call-blocking devices.

Elderly Aids, a company selling devices to block unwanted calls, was fined £190,000 for making around 758,000 nuisance calls per year. The enforcement action highlights ongoing regulatory scrutiny of telemarketing practices. No cyber incident or data exposure was involved.

The Register · Security · 21d agoPolicy & legal