the times | Friday March 6 2020 2GM 17
News
Virgin Media has admitted that the per-
sonal details of 900,000 customers
have been accessed by a third party
without permission, including names,
home addresses, telephone numbers
and sometimes dates of birth.
The information was contained in a
database used for marketing and has
been accessible for the past 11 months.
Virgin Media discovered the data
breach, one of the largest in recent
years, last Friday.
The company said that its security
policies “fell short of our usual stan-
dards”.
The breach has affected about 15 per
cent of Virgin Media’s fixed-line tele-
phone customers as well as some Virgin
Mobile users. The company said that a
small number of “non-customers” had
rola, Samsung, Sony and LG were found
to have vulnerabilities, and anyone
using an Android phone released in
2012 or earlier should be “especially
concerned”.
It also encouraged anyone running a
version of Android older than 7.
Nougat, first released in 2016, to update
their software as it is no longer support-
ed by Google, or replace the device.
Kate Bevan, from Which?, said that
consumers should be able to rely on
longer periods of support for their de-
vices. She added: “It’s very concerning
that expensive Android devices have
such a short shelf life before they lose
security support — leaving millions of
users at risk of serious consequences.”
Google did not respond to a request
for comment.GUY BELL/REXCareful design The Scutari sash from the nurses’ uniform designed by Florence
Nightingale is part of an exhibition to mark the 200th anniversary of her birth. It
opens on Sunday at the museum named after her at St Thomas’ Hospital, LondonThe BBC must become “less Auntie”
and build a warmer relationship with
the British public, the corporation’s di-
rector-general has said.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead said the
national broadcaster’s traditional nick-
name — indicating a matron-like re-
straint — should be set aside as it seeks
to become a more intimate part of audi-
ence’s lives.
He also predicted that a universal li-
cence fee of some kind would remain
after 2027 when the BBC’s royal charter
expires, despite government threats to
axe the compulsory levy.
The outgoing director-general, who
is stepping down this summer, suggest-
ed that the BBC could thrive with a
mixed funding model that would in-
volve a reformed licence fee topped up
with subscription revenue and an in-
creased government contribution to
the World Service.
“The great thing about the licence fee
paid by everybody is that you have to be
universal,” Lord Hall told a conference
in London yesterday.
“That means it’s just not good
enough if you have people who are say-
ing ‘I’m glad you’re there but I don’t
really use you’. What I hope we are de-
veloping is a much warmer relationship
with the British public, which is less the
‘Auntie’ of two or three decades ago,
and much more something which is in-
terwoven into the fabric of all our lives.”
Lord Hall acknowledged that the
BBC could learn from subscription
streaming giants such as Netflix by
making it easier for people to pay for a
licence and access programmes.
However, he added: “Netflix don’t do
news, they don’t do sport, they don’t do
a whole raft of things. We must see what
the BBC delivers in the round.”
He urged the government not to
“throw the baby out with the bath-
water” as it reviews the BBC’s funding,
saying the corporation is “more needed
today than at any point in history”.
Earlier Oliver Dowden, the new cul-
ture secretary, said that the BBC pro-
vided “a narrow urban outlook” and
must start reflecting the views of the
entire UK. In his first big speech, he ac-
cused the national broadcaster of be-
coming “distant and disengaged” and
being slow to pick up on recent political
trends, an apparent reference to Brexit.BBC should
drop Auntie
act, says
Lord Hall
Matthew Moore Media CorrespondentProbation staff
missed nine
chances to keep
rapist in jail
Richard Ford Home Correspondent before. Within four months of being re-
leased in 2017 McCann had broken the
terms of his licence by travelling to
Manchester without the permission of
his probation officer. In August 2017 he
was arrested for burglary and five
months later sentenced to three years
in prison. Probation staff failed to order
his recall during 2018, which would
have forced the Parole Board to consid-
er any future release.
Instead, he was released in February
last year after serving half his sentence.
Within weeks he had broken his licence
conditions by not telling probation staff
about a new relationship.
The report said: “It appears that the
pressure on the staff throughout 2018
and the chaotic transfer of the case
between numerous offender managers
also significantly impacted their ability
to comprehensively review McCann’s
historical record.”
The report reveals that only one
member of the National Probation Ser-
vice was disciplined for failings directly
linked to the case. Two other probation
officers were dismissed for overall poor
performance.
Alan Collins, a lawyer for McCann’s
victims, said the report made for “hard
and distressing reading”.
He added: “McCann posed a real risk
to the public and the systems in place to
manage the risk he posed were corrupt-
ed through ineffectual management
and poor judgment.”
Justin Russell, the chief inspector of
probation, is to carry out a review of the
case and the process of recalling offend-
ers to prison.
Suella Braverman, the attorney-
general, said that she had referred
McCann’s sentence to the Court of
Appeal under the unduly lenient sen-
tence scheme. A hearing will take place
on March 25.
Robert Buckland, QC, the justice sec-
retary, said: “HM Prison and Probation
Service has identified unacceptable
failings in this case and has rightly
apologised to victims for them.”
Probation staff had nine opportunities
to deny the release from jail of Joseph
McCann, the serial rapist, before he
went on a rampage and attacked 11
women and children, an internal
inquiry has found.
They had been warned that he posed
a risk of committing sexual offences
against teenage girls eight years before
he carried out his attacks, according to
a summary of the review carried out by
the probation service and published
yesterday.
Concern about the danger posed by
McCann was first expressed in 2011,
when he was serving a sentence for
burglary. Police shared with other
agencies information dating back to
2003 which suggested that he might
pose a risk of sexual harm and exploita-
tion to teenage girls. The prison holding
McCann had also intercepted two sets
of letters from him which “indicated he
posed a risk of sexual harm”.
Between 2017, when he was released,
and 2019 there were nine occasions
when reimprisoning him was discussed
by the National Probation Service.
The report said that McCann, 34,
should have been kept in jail at least
until the Parole Board was satisfied it
was safe to let him out again.
McCann was handed 33 life terms
and jailed for a minimum of 30 years in
December for the attacks on 11 women
and children aged 11 to 71 in Watford
and the northwest last April.
Described by his sentencing judge as
a “classic psychopath”, McCann had
been freed from another sentence after
a probation service error two months
Joseph McCann
was given 33 life
sentences for the
kidnap and rape of
11 women and
childrenVirgin Media admits huge data breach
also been affected as the database con-
tained details taken from “refer a
friend” promotions.
Virgin Media, the UK’s second-
biggest broadband provider, discovered
the problem when it realised that a
database had not been configured
properly by a staff member.
The company said that the informa-
tion breach did not include any pass-
words or financial details and was not
the result of a cyberattack. However, it
has been accessed by at least one per-
son since last April. The database also
contained details of customers’ con-
tracts.
The Financial Times, which revealed
the data breach, said that the informa-
tion could be used by fraudsters to con-
tact customers directly and pose as
Virgin Media staff, conning them into
handing over more information.
Lutz Schüler, chief executive of Vir-gin Media, said: “Protecting our
customers’ data is a top priority and we
sincerely apologise.”
He added: “Based upon our investi-
gation, Virgin Media does believe that
the database was accessed on at least
one occasion but we do not know the
extent of the access or if any informa-
tion was actually used.”
Mr Schüler said that the company
was now writing to all those affected to
inform them of the breach and had
notified the Information Commission-
er’s Office, which protects the data
rights of the public in the UK.
Virgin Media added that it would
have made an immediate statement
about the breach to the public if the
database had contained financial
details or passwords, but it had decided
to investigate the situation fully with an
outside company before telling its cus-
tomers about the incident.Billion Android phones
‘vulnerable to hacking’
More than a billion Android phones
and tablets could be vulnerable to hack-
ers because they are no longer support-
ed by security updates, research has
suggested.
A report by the consumer group
Which? said that about 40 per cent of
Android users were running old
versions of software that no longer
receive updates from Google.
Android is the world’s most popular
mobile operating system, with more
than 2.5 billion active Android devices in
use last year, according to Google.
Google and Apple release new ver-
sions of their software annually, fol-
lowed by smaller updates for several
years to fix any further issues.
According to Which?, older phones
from manufacturers including Moto-Tom Knowles
Technology Correspondent