Water company's leaky security earns near-£1M fine

Poor security left hackers inside water company network for nearly two years

The UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), fined South Staffordshire Water’s parent company £963,900 over security failures linked to a cyberattack that exposed the personal data of 633,887 people. According to the ICO, the South Staffordshire breach began in September 2020 with a phishing email that tricked an employee into opening an attachment, allowing attackers to install malicious software inside the c…

Water company's leaky security earns near-£1M fine

The UK's data protection watchdog has fined South Staffordshire Water's parent company nearly £1 million over security failings exposed by the Cl0p ransomware attack in 2022. Issuing the fine of £963,900 ($1.3 million), the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said the attack exposed "significant failures in the company's approach to data security." The attack, claimed by Cl0p, was detected in July 2022 after engineers responded to performanc…

UK water company allowed hackers to lurk undetected for nearly two years, regulator finds

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined South Staffordshire Water £963,900 ($1.3 million) on Monday over an attack by the Cl0p ransomware group that led to the personal data of 633,887 customers and employees being published in August 2022.