SpaceX’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based Starlink ultrafast broadband satellite service has been in the news a few times this week as they tweak their packages across the world, and today it’s the UK’s turn. Residential customers have been informed of a significant price cut from £89 to £75 per month. But there’s more. The […]

In a small but interesting update, Openreach (BT) has revealed that – as part of their partnership with Apple – over 30,000 of their engineers now have the “latest” iPhone, which through more than 40 custom apps has enabled them to complete 3,000 more jobs a month than usual (recorded over the last 6 months). […]

Fibre builder and UK ISP Swish Fibre, which until now has been busy deploying their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 250,000 premises across the Home Counties of England, has begun to extend their plans into Yorkshire by establishing a new subsidiary – Swish Fibre Yorkshire. The operator, which is being backed by an […]

Full Fibre operator Netomnia (supported by UK ISP YouFibre) has today begun their first two deployments of a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network under their latest rollout plan to 2023, which has started in the Welsh town of Wrexham and the city of Bristol in South West England. The company, which aims to cover […]

Shrewsbury-based ISP SWS Broadband (aka RBBS – Rural Broadband Solutions Plc), which until recently only served premises in rural parts of Shropshire (England) and Wales with a fixed wireless access network, has announced that the first two locations under their full fibre rollout are now live in Shropshire. In case anybody has forgotten, RBBS revealed […]

Press Release

A new study from Mobile UK suggests that closing the digital divide could help make adult social care more efficient and effective, as well as saving councils money and reducing stress on the NHS

Mobile UK, the voice of the UK’s main mobile network operators, has published a report entitled Connected Care: How mobile connectivity can help councils overcome the challenges of delivering adult social care. This report highlights the enormous potential that connectivity can offer to the challenges that councils face in delivering adult social care.

While innovation in emerging technologies is forging ahead, and other industries and sectors are taking advantage of mobile connectivity, this new report finds that social care providers and councils are not currently set up to take advantage of improved efficiencies – with only 40% of social care providers currently ‘digitised’.

With councils struggling, both financially and in terms or resources, the opportunities that digital connectivity can offer should be better understood.

New digital devices offer adults in need of in-home living support provision the chance to live independently for longer. For every additional week not in residential care councils can save £648 per person – or £33,700 per year. Additionally, remote monitoring to ensure medication is taken can potentially reduce hospital admissions by 60% – crucial at a time when the NHS is facing its biggest ever challenge. [Government Transformation, 2021].

Digital solutions could also have a material impact on alleviating the social care staffing crisis by supporting better working conditions, easier reporting capabilities, enhanced recruitment processes and upskilling. One example, highlighted in the report in East London, showcased where the training of staff in the use of digital technologies provided opportunities for care workers to access new skills, and resulted in improved job satisfaction and enabled staff to reach their career goals.

This report finds that there is enormous potential for councils to do more to adopt new applications and to ensure the highest quality mobile connectivity is available to them. Local authorities must therefore put infrastructure at the heart of policy making, recognising its foundational status in enabling councils to do more with less while reducing the challenge of adult social care delivery. Mobile UK is advocating for centrally funded Digital Champions to help coordinate and take ownership of these plans

Commenting on the Connected Care report, Chief Executive for Mobile UK, Hamish MacLeod said:

“With the pressure on councils more pronounced than ever and social care one of the biggest challenges they face it is important that the role of digital connectivity and the opportunities it offers are better understood.

“Our report highlights many of these opportunities both to the council and those in need, calling for mobile connectivity to be more heavily integrated into council policy and planning.”

Commenting further, Cancer surgeon and Vodafone Connected Health Ambassador, Professor Shafi Ahmed said:

“Connectivity is key to deliver better, faster care to patients in every part of the health and social care services. Technology can – and I firmly believe, will – completely transform health care across the UK and beyond, making it more equitable, accessible and affordable. But there’s still considerable reluctance to embrace these changes, which is why reports like this are so vital.

“By setting out clearly where the opportunities are, Mobile UK has made it much easier for councils and care providers to understand the impact technology can have on the delivery and quality of social care.”

The full report which contains a foreword by Central London Forward’s Digital Champion Nicola Egan, can be viewed and downloaded here.

Are the UK’s mobile operators doing enough to support vulnerable customers and close the digital divide? Find out more from the operators at this year’s live Connected Britain conference 

Also in the news:
Singtel mulling the sale of cybersecurity firm Trustwave
CityFibre undergoes colourful rebrand
Vodafone offloads Hungarian unit for €1.8bn

The post Connected Care: Digitalisation to transform adult social care first appeared on Total Telecom.

Press Release

Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, unveiled its mid-year cyberthreats report, conducted by Acronis’ Cyber Protection Operation Centers, to provide an in-depth review of the cyberthreat trends the company’s experts are tracking. The report details how ransomware continues to be the number one threat to large and medium-sized businesses, including government organisations, and underlines how over-complexity in IT and infrastructure leads to increased attacks. Nearly half of all reported breaches during the first half of 2022 involved stolen credentials, which enable phishing and ransomware campaigns. Findings underscore the need for more holistic approaches to cybersecurity.

To extract credentials and other sensitive information, cybercriminals use phishing and malicious emails as their preferred infection vectors. Nearly one percent of all emails contain malicious links or files, and more than one-quarter (26.5%) of all emails were delivered to the user’s inbox (not blocked by Microsoft365) and then were removed by Acronis email security.

Moreover, the research reveals how cybercriminals also use malware and target unpatched software vulnerabilities to extract data and hold organisations hostage. Further complicating the cybersecurity threat landscape is the proliferation of attacks on non-traditional entry avenues. Attackers have made cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance systems a priority of late. Successful breaches using these various routes have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars and terabytes of exposed data.

These attacks are able to be launched due to overcomplexity in IT, a common problem throughout businesses as many tech leaders assume more vendors and programs lead to improved security when the inverse is actually true. Increased complexity exposes more surface area and gaps to potential attackers, keeping organisations vulnerable to potentially devastating damage.

“Today’s cyberthreats are constantly evolving and evading traditional security measures,” said Candid Wüest, Acronis VP of Cyber Protection Research. “Organisations of all sizes need a holistic approach to cybersecurity that integrates everything from anti-malware to email-security and vulnerability-assessment capabilities. Cybercriminals are becoming too sophisticated and the results of attacks too dire to leave it to single-layered approaches and point solutions.”

Critical data points reveal complex threat landscape

As reliance on the cloud increases, attackers have homed in on different entryways to cloud-based networks. Cybercriminals increased their focus on Linux operating systems and managed service providers (MSPs) and their network of SMB customers. The threat landscape is shifting, and companies must keep pace.

Ransomware is worsening, even more so than we predicted.

Ransomware gangs, like Conti and Lapsus$, are inflicting serious damage.
The Conti gang demanded $10 million in ransom from the Costa Rican government and has published much of the 672 GB of data it stole.
Lapsus$ stole 1 TB of data and leaked credentials of over 70,000 NVIDIA users. The same gang also stole 30 GB worth of T-Mobile’s source code.
The U.S. Department of State is concerned, offering up to $15 million for information about the leadership and co-conspirators of Conti.

The use of phishing, malicious emails and websites, and malware continues to grow.

Six hundred malicious email campaigns made their way across the internet in the first half of 2022.
58% of the emails were phishing attempts.
Another 28% of those emails featured malware.
The business world is increasingly distributed, and in Q2 2022, an average of 8.3% of endpoints tried to access malicious URLs.

More cybercriminals are focusing on cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms. By exploiting flaws in smart contracts or stealing recovery phrases and passwords with malware or phishing attempts, hackers have wormed their way into crypto wallets and exchanges alike.

Cyberattacks have contributed to a loss of more than $60 billion in DeFi currency since 2012.
$44 billion of that vanished during the last 12 months.

Unpatched vulnerabilities of exposed services is another common infection vector—just ask Kaseya. To that end, companies like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe have emphasised software patches and transparency around publicly submitted vulnerabilities. These patches likely helped stem the tide of 79 new exploits each month. Unpatched vulnerabilities also tie into how overcomplexity is hurting businesses more than helping, as all of these vulnerabilities serve as additional potential points of failure.

Breaches leave financial, SLA distress in their wake

Cybercriminals often demand ransoms or outright steal funds from their targets. But companies do not suffer challenges only to their bottom lines. Attacks often cause downtime and other service-level breaches, impacting a company’s reputation and customer experience.

In 2021 alone, the FBI attributed a total loss of $2.4 billion to business email compromise (BEC).
Cyberattacks caused more than one-third (36%) of downtime in 2021.

The current cybersecurity threat landscape requires a multi-layered solution that combines anti-malware, EDR, DLP, email security, vulnerability assessment, patch management, RMM, and backup capabilities all in one place. The integration of these various components gives companies a better chance of avoiding cyberattacks, mitigating the damage of successful attacks, and retaining data that might have been altered or stolen in the process.

You can download a copy of the full Acronis Mid-Year Cyberthreats Report 2022 here.

 

The post Ransomware is the number-one threat to organisations, claims new report first appeared on Total Telecom.

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellite service, fresh from trialling a cheaper capped allowance package in France (here), has now begun offering another new service – initially only in the USA – to customers who are stuck on a waiting list. The catch is that you’ll have to accept a potentially substandard (“Best Efforts“) connection. Customers of […]

Some 11 homes along Heggatt Street in a rural Norfolk (England) community, outside Horstead, have been left without broadband access since 30th July, which began after unspecified damage was caused to Openreach’s (BT) network in the area. Some residents have been forced to drive out of the area just to find adequate connectivity. Openreach has […]

The Mobile UK trade body, which represents Three UK, EE (BT), O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone, has published a new report that highlight how mobile connectivity can help councils overcome the challenges of delivering adult social care. But it’s also pushing for rates relief and easier planning approvals on new masts etc. At present, all of […]