It is the end of the month and therefore time for a cyber security news Aug 2021 round-up. We take a look at a first for the Ministry of Defence. There was yet another high-profile hacking incident and a hike in cyber security pay to read all about. You can also read our blog for more news round-ups, updates and more.
Ethical hackers team up with Defence
The start of August saw this press release arrive on the Government website. For the first time ever, the MOD ran a ‘Bug Bounty’ programme enlisting the skills of 26 ethical hackers. The 30-day challenge is designed to discover and fix vulnerabilities in cyber security systems.
$100m crypto heist hits Japan
This story on BBC News broke on August 20th. It revealed that leading cryptocurrency exchange Liquid was the victim of a hack. Almost $100m was estimated to have been stolen, with Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens in amongst the total. Liquid is huge, making the top 20 of cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volumes (source: CoinMarketCap).
Cyber security salaries up due to remote working
Late last week this story appeared on The HR Director website. Cyber security experts in the East Midlands have enjoyed a +8% pay rise this year, from £60,800 to £66,100. This is the largest average salary increase in the UK. It is due to the rise in security spending from organisations to implement robust security for those working from home. ‘WFH’ essentially made it much harder to keep IT infrastructures intact during the lockdown. Organisations were and are now much more susceptible to the risks of a data breach.
That is all then for cyber security news Aug 2021 but we would love to hear your comments. Were there any stories in August that deserved to be included here? Are you a cyber security worker who has not had a pay rise in the last 12 months? Follow us on social media for more updates, or get in touch if you need guidance on anything security-related.