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TECHNOLOGY REPORT










































      Don’t byte off more than




      you can encrypt




                                              e need apps to get anything done.
                                              Want to talk to support – use chat.   There are plenty more examples including some for the
                                              Need to buy a widget – go online.   world of print. Consider the 2014 story where Frip
       The highly digitised                   Good luck trying to speak to a human   Finishing in Leicestershire issued a warning to the sector
       world we inhabit                       being. This new world brings conven-  of the dangers of having a Voice Over Internet Protocol
       would be alien to        Wience and speed. But it also involves      telephone connection after falling victim to a £35,000
       someone sitting on       serious risks that didn’t exist in the analogue world.  SIP Trunk fraud. A fraud was carried out over the
                                 Previously we’d write a memo or send a letter and wait
                                                                            Halloween weekend in 2011 that resulted in Frip being
       the Clapham              for a response. Now, someone on the other side of the   invoiced for call charges totalling £29,631 for the month
       Omnibus 20 years         planet can access information in milliseconds, including   of October 2011 which, with a nominal £2 admin fee and
       ago. But imagine         that which a business considers critically important, if   VAT saw the total bill reach £35,560.
                                not confidential. Worse, they can cause chaos from afar
       someone doing the        with a key stroke.                           And in 2022, cyber security experts at Cybernews said
       same 30 years further     Between July 2017 and April 2018, Dixons Carphone   that they had hijacked close to 28,000 unsecured printing
                                                                            devices worldwide and forced hijacked devices to print
       back in time and con-    saw 14 million personal records and 5.6 million payment   out a short five-step guide on how to secure a printer, with
       sider what they’d        card data hacked. The company took a year to start drib-  a link to a more detailed version of the guide on its web-
                                bling out information about the attack. The ICO subse-
       think.                   quently levied a £500,000 fine and the company ended   site. Using software the site started off by finding more
                                up closing 100 Carphone Warehouse stores and rebrand-  than 800,000 printers online. It then chose 50,000 to
       Words by                 ing to Currys.                              hack and successfully connected to 27,944.
                                 In March 2020, Virgin Media had the personal data of   More recently, in September 2023, Stockport-based
       Adam Bernstein
                                900,000 customers stolen and made publicly accessible   Digital ID was named as the company at the centre of a
                                for some 10 months. Following the incident, Virgin   cyber attack and data breach that potentially involved the
                                Media reportedly faced a class-action lawsuit with a   details of thousands of Metropolitan Police staff in rela-
                                potential total compensation payout of £4.5bn.  tion to warrant cards and staff passes.

      26 PrintWeek MENA December 2024                                                             www.printweekmena.com
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