We focus on the latest news surrounding data breaches, leaks and hacks plus daily internet security articles.
Arup, an international professional services firm, has reportedly suffered a recent data breach, after their third-party payroll provider succumbed to a cybersecurity incident.
The payroll information of current and former employees is understood to have been affected, with Arup contacting those whose details have been compromised. We cannot yet put a number on the scale of the breach but, based on the information disclosed to customers, the Arup data breach may have affected many of the company’s employees.
We have already begun taking on cases for affected claimants, who may be entitled to recover compensation for the exposure of their personal data. If you have been notified of your involvement in the Arup data breach, please do not hesitate to contact us for free, no-obligation advice on your potential compensation claim.
In the penultimate week of March, retail chain Fat Face reportedly sent an email to customers notifying them of a breach that had first been identified in mid-January. Reportedly sent to thousands of affected customers, the email revealed that private data had been accessed by an unauthorised user for a limited period of time. It has also been alleged that customers were told to keep the notification of the Fat Face data breach private, and that the company has allegedly paid a ransom to a cybercrime gang.
These claims have yet to be fully verified, but there are still several issues arising out of the Fat Face data breach. The company’s notification to customers appears to be delayed at best, which raises questions about whether Fat Face followed the correct data breach notification procedures. At this stage, we do not know, and we will need to find out.
In any case, the victims whose private information was exposed could now fall victim to data misuse. If it emerges that Fat Face was at fault, victims may be eligible to make compensation claims, and we are already taking claims forward for this incident.
Amey has joined the growing list of construction companies affected by hacks, after suffering the blow of a ransomware attack in mid-December last year. The Amey cyberattack reportedly exposed extensive company data, including information relating to employees and business transactions.
With much of the data being dumped on the hacker group’s leak site, the cyberattack has produced a substantial breach of company privacy that could significantly affect the operations of the infrastructure support service provider. As a giant of the industry, the Amey breach will likely raise concerns in the UK construction sector, with other companies worrying if they may be the next target.
A data leak at work can be the worst nightmare of an employee, as the breach of privacy can feel incredibly exposing in a professional context.
It may also feel difficult to confront your employer about the damage that has been caused to you, particularly where the error of your colleague(s) has provoked the data breach, as this can make the aftermath a very difficult and stressful time.
All companies are required by law to ensure that they handle, process and store data according to the given data protection rules as set out in the GDPR. Even where a data protection error can seem innocuous, such as in an accidental email attachment, it can still constitute a breach of the GDPR. If you are an employee who has fallen prey to a data leak at a work, you may be entitled to claim compensation. We support victims of all kinds of data breaches to achieve the justice that they deserve, so contact us if you think you have a claim to make.
In what is continuing to be a common trend for local government authorities, the recent Blackpool Council data leak has seen the exposure of personal data belonging to hundreds of individuals.
The issue has been labelled as a so-called accidental “human error” incident. A data handling mistake reportedly resulted in the details of about 428 people being made public, when the data should have remained private.
Occurring within months of our coverage of the Hackney Council cyberattack and the Bristol City Council data leak, this breach unfortunately comes as no shock to us. It probably comes as no shock to anyone who has become familiar with recurring patterns of council data leaks in general. Inadequate data protection practices at so many local councils means that this is a nationwide problem. We are here to help anyone affected by data breaches like this, striving to win them the compensation they deserve.
A constable at Derbyshire Police has recently faced a misconduct hearing over allegations of unlawfully accessing records of a police incident and then sharing a photo of the file with colleagues.
Although the officer’s actions contravened policing standards and data protection law, he has escaped dismissal and will be allowed to continue serving at Derbyshire Police.
Regardless of the verdict of the hearing, a breach such as this should never have occurred at all. Testaments to the officer’s reportedly “excellent” work as an officer do not erase his culpability for what has been regarded as an incredibly reckless action. As an organisation with access to extensive personal data, the police service has a vital duty to be rigorous in data protection and we should all feel safe that our information with them is secure. Our trust in the police should never be abused.
Often, the most high-profile data leaks involve customer data being leaked by a third-party organisation as, in these cases, the hit to the company’s reputation and revenue can be perceived as more significant. However, staff information data leaks can be just as costly, as they can expose extremely sensitive information related to the internal operations of a business.
In many cases, such leaks can be entirely preventable, and they may never have occurred if companies and their staff had rigidly followed data protection protocol. Nowadays, there should really be no excuse for accidents and mistakes, as the GDPR requires that any company in possession of private data follows stringent regulations.
At Your Lawyers – T/A The Data Leak Lawyers – we are a leading data compensation law firm that is here to help any staff member who has fallen victim to a data leak provoked by their own organisation. You may be entitled to claim thousands of pounds in compensation.
School cyberattacks represent some of the most significant threats to data privacy in the UK, primarily because of the sensitivity of the information that school systems hold.
While cybersecurity procedures will hopefully be followed well by most staff, the effects can be dangerous when a cyberattack exposes children, parent, or staff information.
Teachers and schools have an important duty of care for their pupils and are often privy to confidential information to allow them to protect children and provide tailored educational plans. This means that a lot of private information falls under their protection, whether this is provided by children and families, or shared with them by social services.
While large-scale data breaches are often the ones that hit the headlines, the reported Sheffield Council data breaches represent an example of how individual data breaches can build up and amount to significant information being exposed.
Over the course of 2019 and 2020, Sheffield City Council is understood to have recorded a total of 231 incidents, 92 of which were breaches involving personal data.
At the Your Lawyers – T/A the Data Leak Lawyers – we have been representing clients in privacy cases since 2014 as a leading firm of data breach compensation lawyers. We believe that councils must be held accountable for any inadequacies when it comes to data protection, so we are here to help you with council data breach compensation claims now.
There is still time to make a claim in the Well Pharmacy data breach action.
In 2018, Well Pharmacy, a major pharmacy chain, was responsible for leaking the details of over 24,000 staff and locum workers, after the data was accidentally included in an email.
Since the breach, The Data Leak Lawyers has been working hard to take on claims for affected employees ever since we launched legal action in early 2019. We have been working on the action for just over two years now, and our door is still open to any claimants who have yet to come forward.
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