Aussie businesses now have to fess up when they pay off ransomware crims
Move should help government track infections and plan new legislation
Public Sector31 May 2025 | 7
Public Sector
Your Public Sector Pulse: Where Policy Meets Tech Innovation
There’s so much happening at The Register in our coverage of government tech, we've created a dedicated section for the public sector, which offers you a front-row seat to the intersection of governance and technology. From e-governance initiatives and cybersecurity protocols to digital transformation in public services, however fast (or slow) it happens, we bring you analyses, updates, and insights that matter.
Meta – yep, Facebook Meta – is now a defense contractor
Giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together so we can shoot them
Public Sector30 May 2025 | 12
UK's answer to Darpa invests £23.3M in touchy-feely robots
Latest project gets the green light although Brexit-era brainchild faces spending review
Public Sector30 May 2025 | 4
The UK wants you to sign up for £1B cyber defense force
War in Ukraine causes major rethink in policy and spending
Security30 May 2025 | 45
Elon Musk bragged this group had been 'deleted' when DOGE shut it down - now they're appealing
18F says the whole thing was political
Public Sector29 May 2025 | 39
US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media
Against backdrop of EU rules on spread of misinfo plus UK probing role of online hate in far right riots
Personal Tech29 May 2025 | 112
HP Inc. hastens China exit as tariffs kick a hole in its profits
Hiked prices and thinks that will make buyers nervous
Personal Tech29 May 2025 | 20
India none-too-subtly reminds Big Tech that local laws prohibit dark patterns
‘Consumers will not tolerate deceit’ Minister tells Amazon, Apple, Samsung and Uber
Legal29 May 2025 | 9
Trump tariffs ruled illegal within minutes of Musk announcing end of government role
World War Fee Hardware biz gets a reprieve but administration’s plans are unchanged
Public Sector29 May 2025 | 146
Ex-CISA employee: 'This culture of fear started permeating the agency'
Interview 'Everyone's holding their breath'
Public Sector28 May 2025 | 10
From Russia with chokehold: Putin says foreign IT firms still in Russia should be 'strangled'
He was responding to a gripe from a Russian IT provider about competition from Microsoft and Zoom
Public Sector27 May 2025 | 24
Trump can bluster and bluff all he wants, but iPhone manufacturing isn't coming to the US
He'll need to be way more aggressive than a 25% tariff, say analysts, and even then it would take years
Public Sector27 May 2025 | 45
UK tax collector puts half a billion on table for call center services
Taxpayers on hold for 798 years might wish for a better service
Public Sector27 May 2025 | 36
Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers or face its wrath
No, not Amazon. China’s SHEIN is in the spotlight for fake discounts, grubby greenery, and evading inquiries
Public Sector27 May 2025 | 61
Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax'
World War Fee But pauses tech-adjacent threat to slap all Euro-imports with 50 percent duties
Public Sector26 May 2025 | 169
China approves rules for national ‘online number’ ID scheme
Asia In Brief PLUS: Original emoji retired; Xiaomi's custom silicon; Pakistan dedicates 2,000 MW to AI and crypto
Public Sector26 May 2025 | 18
Cybercrime is 'orders of magnitude' larger than state-backed ops, says ex-White House advisor
INTERVIEW Michael Daniel also thinks Uncle Sam should increase help to orgs hit by ransomware
Cyber-crime24 May 2025 | 25
Rideshare companies in India are asking for tips before the trip
Consumer affairs Minister is not happy with Uber for following local players with this scheme to encourage rapid pickups
Public Sector23 May 2025 | 25
Space Force tech mission threatened by staff and funding black hole
Budget slashing has 'outsized impact' on us, says commander who fears branch not ready for orbital war
Public Sector22 May 2025 | 17
Europe is Russian to sanction Putin's pals over 'hybrid' threats
Names spies, web hosts, GPS jammers, fishing (not phishing) biz
Public Sector22 May 2025 | 7
Popular
Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves
Opinion Prediction: General-purpose AI could start getting worse
Ransomware attack on MATLAB dev MathWorks – licensing center still locked down
Commercial customers, STEM students all feeling the pain after mega outage of engineering data-analysis tool
Google co-founder Sergey Brin suggests threatening AI for better results
So much for buttering up ChatGPT with 'Please' and 'Thank you'
Three ways to run Windows apps on a Linux box
hands on Easy, medium, and the sledgehammer approach – or any combination you fancy
Techies thought outside the box. Then the boss decided to take the box away
Who, Me? Life in a corporate aquarium didn’t go swimmingly
8,000+ Asus routers popped in 'advanced' mystery botnet plot
No formal attribution made but two separate probes hint at the same suspect
China approves rules for national ‘online number’ ID scheme
Asia In Brief PLUS: Original emoji retired; Xiaomi's custom silicon; Pakistan dedicates 2,000 MW to AI and crypto
Empire of office workers strikes back against RTO mandates
The rebellion grows and it seems resistance is not futile
Why is China deep in US networks? 'They're preparing for war,' HR McMaster tells lawmakers
House Homeland Security Committee takes a field trip to Silicon Valley
TeleMessage security SNAFU worsens as 60 government staffers exposed
Infosec In Brief PLUS: Interpol kills more malware; GoDaddy settles in awful infosec case; Giant stolen creds DB exposed
STORIES
Wyden warns telcos still leave Senate in the dark after Trump DOJ snooping scandal
Updated AT&T, Verizon, T-Mo failed to alert lawmakers about surveillance, senator says
Public Sector21 May 2025 | 13
Google carves out cloudy safe spaces for nations nervous about America's reach
From air-gapped bunkers to partner-run platforms, sovereignty is suddenly in vogue
PaaS + IaaS21 May 2025 | 25
Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America
In practice, it'll cost many times that and almost certainly won't work
Security21 May 2025 | 187
UK 'extremely dependent' on US for space security
After 60 years+ cooperation on space and military ops, worrying 'rhetoric' from Team Trump has Brits examining options
Security21 May 2025 | 108
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang labels US GPU export bans ‘precisely wrong’ and ‘a failure’
Computex Argues the world needs China’s AI researchers working on his chips so the rest of us benefit
AI + ML21 May 2025 | 22
Millions at risk after attackers steal UK legal aid data dating back 15 years
Cybercriminals lifted info including addresses, ID numbers, and financial records from agency systems
Cyber-crime19 May 2025 | 49
IT chiefs of UK's massive health service urge vendors to make public security pledge
Enormous org has been hit by ransomware again and again, on multiple fronts, over the past year
Cyber-crime19 May 2025 | 27
Ex-NSA bad-guy hunter listened to Scattered Spider's fake help-desk calls: 'Those guys are good'
INTERVIEW Plus, Co-op tells The Reg: 'we took early and decisive action' to block the crooks
CSO18 May 2025 | 66
Fired US govt workers, Uncle Xi wants you! – to apply for this fake consulting gig
Phony LinkedIn recruitment ads? Groundbreaking
Public Sector16 May 2025 | 27
Dems are upset about DOGE's IRS hackathon, but the IRS says it never happened
Tax bods characterize it more as a brainstorming session, says Elon's unit wasn't involved
Public Sector16 May 2025 | 19
Good luck to Atos' 7th CEO and its latest biz transformation
We suspect Philippe Salle will need it, not to mention staff and customers
On-Prem16 May 2025 | 16
How sticky notes saved 'the single biggest digital program in the world'
Success of UK's Universal Credit has lessons for government IT projects, former minister claims
Public Sector16 May 2025 | 80
Trump says he has a problem if Apple builds iThings in India
Cupertino's plan to spend $500bn stateside wasn’t enough to placate the tycoon of tariffs
Public Sector16 May 2025 | 55
GAO finds billions in possible government savings, all without Elon's help
Comment More than $100M in costs could be cut by gutting duplicative IT alone, making DOGE itself look a bit redundant
Public Sector14 May 2025 | 43
Uncle Sam pulls $2.4B Leidos deal to support CISA after rival alleges foul play
Nightwing claims insider intel helped secure lucrative CISA work but US says decision is unrelated
Public Sector14 May 2025 | 4
Everyone's deploying AI, but no one's securing it – what could go wrong?
CYBERUK Crickets as senior security folk asked about risks at NCSC conference
CSO14 May 2025 | 22
Post Office finally throttles delayed in-house EPOS project
Troubled state biz tenders £410M software and DC-to-cloud migration plan, goodbye to Fujitsu on the Horizon
Public Sector14 May 2025 | 35
Ransomware scum have put a target on the no man's land between IT and operations
Defenses are weaker, and victims are more likely to pay, SANS warns
CSO14 May 2025 | 17
US tech titans rejoice in $600B Saudi shopping spree
Prince Mohammed bin Bone Saw will take a few hundred thousand GPUs with his missiles and fighter jets
AI Infrastructure Month14 May 2025 | 46
NSF director memo to staff: Don't worry about those job cuts, at least for now
Court orders halt to layoffs – as folks steering American innovation wonder how long injunction will last
Science14 May 2025 | 8
Judge puts two-week pause on Trump's mass government layoffs
But the government may be ignoring it anyway
Public Sector13 May 2025 | 74
CISA mutes own website, shifts routine cyber alerts to Musk’s X, RSS, email
Updated Cripes, we were only joking when we called Elon's social network the new state media
Security12 May 2025 | 67
US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired
Some see an action to benefit Elon. The White House sees an agency obsessed with DEI
AI + ML12 May 2025 | 113
UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans
France's share of MOD cash is growing while the US's shrinks
Offbeat10 May 2025 | 78
US govt's science foundation purges 37 divisions, equity unit among casualties
DEI another day: Trump priorities bite as $1B in grants vanish, layoffs loom
Science09 May 2025 | 81
US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check
Price tag unknown
Public Sector09 May 2025 | 108
Stop Pakistani content at the border, India tells media, tech biz
Songs, social network vids threaten national security, apparently
Public Sector08 May 2025 | 12
Workday handed no-bid deal to fix staffing meltdown at Uncle Sam's uber-HR agency
Updated Do we smell DOGE? Yup
SaaS08 May 2025 | 17
India ready to greenlight Starlink – as long as it lets New Delhi censor, snoop
Officials demand device registration, location locking, logs of user activity
Networks07 May 2025 | 12
Citrix finds new use for virtualization: Avoiding PC price hikes caused by tariffs
World War Fee Seeing as IT giant's CEO is big at DOGE, this is delicious
Virtualization07 May 2025 | 28
New Zealand kind-of moves to ban social media for under-16s, require age checks for new accounts
Prime Minister bemoans bullying, addiction, and inappropriate content – but isn’t planning a rapid vote
Public Sector07 May 2025 | 30
Trump's wind farm funding freeze is so much hot air, say states as they blow sueball to Washington
We'd be shocked, just shocked, if Big Tech's renewable energy ambitions aren't known in the White House
On-Prem07 May 2025 | 62
Pentagon declares war on 'outdated' software buying, opens fire on open source
(If only that would keep folks off unsanctioned chat app side quests)
Public Sector06 May 2025 | 75
Palantir loves the smell of DOGE budget cuts in the morning
Data giant backs federal austerity push, saying it's 'the right thing' for US
Databases06 May 2025 | 33
CISA slammed for role in 'censorship industrial complex' as budget faces possible $500M cut
Because who needs cybersecurity when there’s culture wars to win
Public Sector06 May 2025 | 38
Signal chat app clone used by Signalgate's Waltz was apparently an insecure mess
Updated No, really? That's a shocking surprise
Security05 May 2025 | 38
Trump promises protection for TikTok, for which he has a ‘warm spot in my heart’
Hails DOGE operatives for computer skills during interview in which he also flubbed some tech investment figures
Public Sector05 May 2025 | 73
India’s chipmaking ambitions hurt by Zoho’s no-go and Adani unease
Asia in brief PLUS: China spring cleans its AIs; South Korea fines Meta, probes Broadcom; and more!
Public Sector05 May 2025 | 7
Trump wants to fire quarter of NASA budget into black hole – and not in a good way
Proposed cuts would mean: No Lunar Gateway, Artemis hardware to retire, ISS toast in 2030
Science02 May 2025 | 121
China turns on ‘minors mode’ that ensures kids only see wholesome socialist content online
Content players and smartphone makers made it happen six months after regulator floated the idea
Public Sector02 May 2025 | 23
Siri? Will tariffs hurt Apple? Tim Cook says brace for a $900M whack, for starters
World War Fee iGiant shifted production to India and Vietnam but has no idea if that will help after tariff pause ends
Public Sector02 May 2025 | 18
Liz Warren, Trump admin agree on something: Army should have right to repair
As military memo makes it official policy
Public Sector02 May 2025 | 27
Dems look to close the barn door after top DOGE dog has bolted
House Oversight probes missing Musk disclosures, background checks, data mess at NLRB
Public Sector01 May 2025 | 101
Chris Krebs loses Global Entry membership amid Trump feud
President's campaign continues against man he claims covered up evidence of electoral fraud in 2020
Security01 May 2025 | 36
HMRC's Making Tax Digital scheme also made tax more expensive – by £300M
Watchdog says transformation effort added costs instead of savings for most businesses
Public Sector01 May 2025 | 75
Samsung customers buying now to avoid future tariffs – and may slow purchases once they arrive
Datacenter build slowdown hurt storage sales but Korean giant sees bit barn rebound
Systems01 May 2025 | 2
Musk’s DOGE probed by top watchdog after poking around Uncle Sam's systems
Oligarch's crew makes audits harder, US comptroller general tells Congress
Public Sector30 Apr 2025 | 16
Ex-CISA chief decries cuts as Trump demands loyalty above all else
RSAC Cybersecurity is national security, says Jen Easterly
Spotlight on RSAC30 Apr 2025 | 11
Does UK's Online Safety Act cover misinformation? Well, that depends
Minister, platform providers disagree on whether law would have helped avoid last summer's riots
Public Sector30 Apr 2025 | 75
Homeland Security boss says CISA has gone off the rails, vows to set it right
RSAC Kirsty Noem argues cyber-agency's job is defending America, not becoming 'Ministry of Truth'
Spotlight on RSAC30 Apr 2025 | 27
Trump admin freaks out over mere suggestion Amazon was going to show tariff impact on prices
World War Fee Revealing import taxes would be 'hostile and political' to Dear Leader
Personal Tech30 Apr 2025 | 231
After leaving citizens on hold for 798 years, UK tax authority has £1B for CRM upgrade
HMRC kicks off procurement to modernize customer service after scathing reports
Public Sector29 Apr 2025 | 23
Admission impossible: NSA, CISA brass absent from RSA Conf
RSAC Homeland Security boss Noem added as last-minute keynote, mind you
Spotlight on RSAC28 Apr 2025 | 11
DOGE may help Elon Musk's biz empire dodge $2.4B in liabilities – Senate probe
Dem Sens demand action to stop SpaceX oligarch from turning watchdogs into corporate yes-men
Public Sector28 Apr 2025 | 71
State Dept reorg could harm US in tech battle with China
Demotion of cyberspace policy team, closure of others, not a great look
Public Sector28 Apr 2025 | 12
Fujitsu and its no public sector bids promises... what happened to them?
Comment Government procurement process is very involved
Public Sector28 Apr 2025 | 19
Even untouched by tariffs, UK financial IT braces for the blow
Spend will come under scrutiny, but projects with good returns still likely to get backing, analyst says
On-Prem28 Apr 2025 | 2
DARPA to 'radically' rev up mathematics research. Yes, with AI
Now that's a sum of all fears
AI + ML27 Apr 2025 | 43
Signalgate lessons learned: If creating a culture of security is the goal, America is screwed
Opinion Infosec is a team sport … unless you're in the White House
Public Sector25 Apr 2025 | 98
Amid CVE funding fumble, 'we were mushrooms, kept in the dark,' says board member
What next for US-bankrolled vulnerability tracker? It's edging closer to a more independent, global future
CSO25 Apr 2025 | 17
£136M government grant saves troubled Post Office from suboptimal IT
Taxpayers foot bill to get to new platform as Fujitsu package balloons to £2.44 billion
Public Sector25 Apr 2025 | 57
India’s services giants brace for impact as US tariffs bite their customers
Wipro was forced to pause an active SAP project due to client’s jitters
Channel24 Apr 2025 | 18
IBM dragged down by DOGE contract cancellation roulette
Big Blue downplays impact of Elon-gated cost-cutting
Public Sector23 Apr 2025 | 23
Fujitsu promised to sit out UK deals ... then Northern Ireland called with £125M
Despite Horizon fallout, Japanese supplier continues to win public sector work
Public Sector23 Apr 2025 | 27
India gets Google to unbundle Android and the Play Store on Smart TVs
Meanwhile, OpenAI expresses an interest in unbundling Chrome from Google
Public Sector23 Apr 2025 | 10
Trump blinks: 'Substantially' lower China tariffs promised
World War Fee Detail? Rationale? Timeline? Nope! It's the art of the squeal
Public Sector23 Apr 2025 | 183
Elon Musk makes another cut – to his time at DOGE
Going to spend more time with his Sieg Heils, maybe
Public Sector22 Apr 2025 | 110
Two CISA officials jump ship, both proud of pushing for Secure by Design software
As cyber-agency faces cuts, makes noises about switching up program
Public Sector22 Apr 2025 | 11
ICE enlists Palantir to develop all-seeing 'ImmigrationOS' eye to speed up deportations
Only Peter Thiel-backed biz can pull off $30M IT deal, apparently
Public Sector21 Apr 2025 | 69
Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern
Comment On top of that, Trump's increased federal spending almost completely negates $150B in cuts
Public Sector20 Apr 2025 | 303
Dems fret over DOGE feeding sensitive data into random AI
Updated Using LLMs to pick programs, people, contracts to cut is bad enough – but doing it with Musk's Grok? Yikes
Public Sector18 Apr 2025 | 67
CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system has begun
Comment MITRE, EUVD, GCVE … WTF?
Spotlight on RSAC18 Apr 2025 | 89
Krebs throws himself on the grenade, resigns from SentinelOne after Trump revokes clearances
Illegitimi non carborundum? Nice password, Mr Ex-CISA
Spotlight on RSAC17 Apr 2025 | 69
Congress wants to know if Nvidia superchips slipped through Singapore to DeepSeek
As Huang jets to Middle Kingdom after H20 ban forces $5.5B hit
AI + ML17 Apr 2025 | 33
Google, AWS say it's too hard for customers to use Linux to swerve Azure
Re-writing applications takes years, is expensive, in-house expertise needed
PaaS + IaaS17 Apr 2025 | 64
Europe's cloud customers eyeing exit from US hyperscalers
'It's amazing how fast the change has been'
PaaS + IaaS17 Apr 2025 | 119
Brit soldiers tune radio waves to fry drone swarms for pennies
Truck-mounted demonstration weapon costs 10p a pop, says MOD
Security17 Apr 2025 | 164
Whistleblower describes DOGE IT dept rampage at America's labor watchdog
Ignored infosec rules, exfiltrated data … then the mysterious login attempts from a Russian IP address began – claim
CSO17 Apr 2025 | 53
California sues President Tariff
World War Fee Ah yes, the courts, that'll totally work
Public Sector16 Apr 2025 | 51
White House confirms 245% tariff on some Chinese imports not a typo
World War Fee Just make it 420.69 and be done with it, Mr President
Public Sector16 Apr 2025 | 78
Biting the hand that feeds IT
