COVID-19 is back again like it never took a pause. The UK is going to be in a state of lockdown for a brief period now. A lot has happened amidst all of this mayhem. Cyber threats never stop, privacy protection should not either. Make sure that you are protected with a little help from our side. With that being said, let’s take a look into the happenings this week.
Compliance should not be as hard as it is for companies even during such a complicated time. We are here for you to simplify and achieve it with ease. Check out the details in the video below on how you can do this.
Here are the top privacy headlines this week:
Marriott Hotels fined £18.4m for data breach that hit millions.
339 million data records of people were affected. The breach was seen as one of the biggest in terms of the fine expectations. Marriott Hotels has been fined £18.4m by the ICO for this data protection failure.
Although this amount is a fraction of what the data protection agency was capable of imposing, it is still a huge amount for such a big brand. The company has not been able to live upto the privacy standard expected of it, and hence, the fine. This is a clear case of a lack of data protection priorities and training. Although, you can train your staff members across your organisation now, and protect yourself from similar circumstances.
Read more here
Experian’s GDPR violation leaves companies scrambling to understand ‘legitimate interest’
A General Data Protection Regulation enforcement notice from the United Kingdom regulators could result in a hefty fine of up to £17 million for the credit reporting giant Experian. This is This fine could set a precedent for both US and EU companies alike who will need to abide by the GDPR law regardless of their location.
Read more here
Revil extorting trade secrets and data of top casino games.
Russian hacker group ‘REvil’ threatens to reveal technical secrets of top casino games if the maker doesn’t meet hefty ransom demand. Interestingly enough, this is not the first attack of its kind this year.
Cyber-attacks and privacy threats across the world are on the rise ever since COVID-19 pandemic leading to an increase in cyber-crime and hacking. However, companies can stay safe to a great extent if they follow the law.
Read more here
Quick summary of the COVID-19 data protection action points
Since the lockdown is in effect, you can once again gear up for the work-from-home and flexible work models with your staff. If you need a quick summary of all the things that you need to do to make this work better this time, then you can visit a collection of ICO’s guidance on the new much needed dynamics.
Also, here is a quick summary of the actions you need to take to ensure that you remain compliant with data privacy regulation during the lockdown: here
The year 2020 has been the year of Cyber-Attacks
According to the business ISP specialist Beaming, within the first quarter of 2020 the volume of cyber-attacks on UK businesses increased by almost a third. This number kept rising as we went deeper into the year of the unprecedented and unexpected.
The Beaming analysts identified 394,000 unique IP addresses used to attack UK businesses in the first quarter of 2020. They concluded that there are around 157,000 attacks on average. This means that there is has been more than one cyber-attack every minute throughout this year.
Read more here
Video on dealing with Covid-19 challenges
So, as promised, here is a quick video to help you with planning and compliance management during the lockdown: The changes in Data Processing and Marketing during COVID 19 Pandemic
Privacy Webinar Series “Impact of Brexit: Privacy & Data Transfers”
Seers is hosting the next privacy webinar on the “Impact of Brexit: Privacy & Data Transfers” on the 19th of Nov at 17:00 GMT with key speakers: Katie Hewson (Senior Associate, Stephenson Harwood LLP) and Gary O’ Reilly (Privacy Expert, Seers).
The aim of this webinar is to help companies by discussing issues related data privacy compliance at the end of the transition period including processes and procedures companies need to undertake in order to ensure compliance, data sharing agreements, data transfer strategy, EU/ UK Representative and more.
You can register for this webinar here
In case you missed our previous privacy webinar “Consent Management: Cookies & Other Challenges” then here is a video recording
GDPR Staff Training
Help your staff to help your organisation stay safe during these challenging times by training them on complying with the GDPR.
