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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n The UK\u2019s data watchdog has fined outsourcer Capita \u00a314mn over a data breach in which hackers stole the personal information of more than 6mn people.<\/p>\n The Information Commissioner\u2019s Office on Wednesday said that Capita had \u201cfailed to ensure the security of personal data\u201d in the 2023 cyber attack. <\/p>\n The data included details of the customers of organisations Capita worked for, as well as pension records and other \u201csensitive information\u201d such as criminal records and financial data, the ICO said. <\/p>\n The cyber attack, which began when a malicious file was unintentionally downloaded on to an employee device in March 2023, affected 325 pension schemes. Capita did not quarantine the device for 58 hours and during this time \u201cthe attacker was able to exploit its systems\u201d, the ICO said. <\/p>\n \u201cCapita failed in its duty to protect the data entrusted to it by millions of people. The scale of this breach and its impact could have been prevented had sufficient security measures been in place,\u201d said John Edwards, the UK\u2019s Information Commissioner.<\/p>\n The fine follows a series of increasingly high-profile cyber attacks on UK companies this year, including Co-op, M&S and Jaguar Land Rover. <\/p>\n The attacks have caused security services, such as MI5, to step up their engagement with private companies. The head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre Richard Horne said this week that the private sector must take its cyber defences more seriously. <\/p>\n \u201cWith so many cyber attacks in the headlines, our message is clear: every organisation, no matter how large, must take proactive steps to keep people\u2019s data secure,\u201d said Edwards. <\/p>\n The ICO said it had initially planned to fine Capita a total of \u00a345mn, but reduced it after Capita submitted details of \u201cmitigating factors\u201d, including improvements made after the attack. <\/p>\n \u201cCapita has acknowledged the ICO\u2019s decision and admitted liability, agreeing to pay a final penalty of \u00a314mn without appealing,\u201d the regulator said.<\/p>\n Capita said: \u201cCapita is committed to upholding the security of its data and protection of our systems for our clients and their customers. We regret the incident and can reaffirm that, following a detailed forensic investigation, all those identified as potentially impacted were contacted after the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK\u2019s data watchdog has fined outsourcer Capita \u00a314mn over a data breach in which hackers stole the personal information of more than 6mn people. The Information Commissioner\u2019s Office on Wednesday said that Capita had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[16733,673,16732,2501,1111,2861,2517,2515],"class_list":{"0":"post-28135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-14mn","9":"tag-attack","10":"tag-capita","11":"tag-cyber","12":"tag-data","13":"tag-fined","14":"tag-personal","15":"tag-theft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}