Irish firms have been urged to restrict their employees from downloading software updates from their workstations following the latest global ransomware attack that is sweeping Europe.

Mobile operator O2 could be forced to wait until next year to press ahead with a long-awaited £10 billion stock market flotation following delays to a crucial airwaves rights auction.

Almost one-fifth of Irish businesses would pay a ransom of up to €50,000 to cyber criminals, a survey has found. The survey by IT firm DataSolutions found almost a third of senior IT professionals didn’t think their companies were equipped to deal with emerging cybersecurity threats.

Irish businesses, Government departments and semi-state bodies are “sitting ducks” for new and more devastating cyber attacks than the one that crippled computers worldwide last month, a leading IT expert has warned.

The worldwide "ransomware" cyber attack has spread to thousands more computers as people across Asia logged in at work, disrupting businesses, schools, hospitals and daily life.

Theresa May said the British Government is not aware of any evidence that patient records have been compromised in the massive cyber attack on the NHS.

Health Minister Simon Harris has said the cyber security of Irish hospitals is being "closely monitored" in the wake of confirmed attacks on hospitals in Britain, writes Daniel McConnell of the Irish Examiner.

Seeking out new revenues, big phone firms at the Mobile World Congress are trying to loosen Google, Amazon and Facebook’s grip, write Eric Auchard and Sophie Sassard.

Telefonica, moving forward with a sale of stock in its infrastructure business as it seeks to pare debt, could do the same with its British wireless unit O2 this year if market conditions are favourable, chairman Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete said.

The Spanish owner of O2 said it may float the British mobile network after seeing a tie-up with rival operator 3 collapse.

The head of a leading German think tank has attacked the purchase by the ECB which got under way yesterday of corporate bonds, saying the quantitative easing measures designed to boost the eurozone economy and which involve buying debt directly from big companies was “dangerous”.

The EU blocked Hutchison’s bid to create the UK’s biggest mobile carrier, the latest setback to consolidation that telecommunications operators say they need to funnel money into new networks.

A UK watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has urged European regulators to effectively block the €12.7bn merger of mobile phone networks Three and O2.

In the days before announcing his departure as chairman and chief executive of Telefonica, César Alierta boarded a private plane for Rome to confer with the Pope about his plan, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges often says Europe needs fewer, bigger telecommunications carriers that can invest in faster networks and better compete with Google and Facebook. Deutsche Telekom has a 12% stake in BT.

Irish network services and software solutions company Aspire Technology has struck a major deal with Digicel at Mobile World Congress to improve the operator’s customer engagement in more than 30 countries.

Vodafone Ireland enjoyed a second consecutive quarter of growth in the last three months of 2015, with revenues and customer numbers on the rise.

Telefonica, Spain’s biggest telecommunications operator, agreed to pay €2.4bn for rights to Spanish soccer and Champions League matches, a move that gives the company’s pay-TV service sports telecasts its competitors already have.

EU antitrust regulators have launched a full investigation into Hutchison Whampoa’s £10.3bn (€14.4m) bid for British mobile operator O2, concerned that the deal may push up prices.

With a $120bn merger with Liberty Global off the table, Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao needs his strategy of higher network investments and acquisitions of European cable companies to start paying off, quickly.

Talks between Vodafone and Liberty Global about exchanging assets to better compete in Europe’s converging mobile, broadband, and TV markets collapsed yesterday because they could not agree on the value of their businesses.

European pay-TV group Sky yesterday said it expects to perform strongly in its new financial year after better-than-expected profits for 2014-15 prompted investors to rethink their growth forecasts for the newly-enlarged group.

Apple and Samsung are working with the GSMA to kill off the traditional SIM card.

If Europe wants its mobile networks to be as advanced as those in the US, further mergers are necessary among wireless operators, said Ronan Dunne, the chief executive of Telefonica SA’s O2 unit.

The latest on the Graham Dwyer trial, Zyan Malik leaves One Direction, the lady who is about to become Ireland’s oldest ever person and Celine Dion discussing her husband’s cancer battle are all part of our evening briefing on the latest and most read content on irishexaminer.com today.   

The latest on the Airbus A320 crash in France, a cocaine seizure in Cork, and a look at what it’s like to be a man in 2015 are all part of our lunchtime briefing on the latest and most read content on irishexaminer.com today.   

Billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Hutchison Whampoa Ltd has agreed to buy O2, Telefonica’s wireless carrier in the UK, for £10.25bn (€14bn) as consolidation heats up in Britain’s phone market.

The new operators of the National Lottery are to appear before the Oireachtas finance committee next Wednesday to face a grilling from retailers and politicians about serious technical glitches in the system since the takeover.

Smartwatches for kids that serve as electronic tagging devices with panic buttons were among the hi-tech gadgets showcased at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The champagne is flowing, freebies are flying out the door, and nobody can manage to keep the smile off their face.

For the first time in nearly three decades the National Lottery was deferred on Wednesday night — the €10m draw took place last night instead.

“Technical problems” have been blamed for the National Lottery’s decision to delay its midweek draw from last night to tonight.

TalkTalk warned full-year earnings would be at the lower end of expectations as it absorbed Tesco’s loss-making blinkbox operation and said its programme of cost savings was on course to miss its target.

Li Ka-shing’s Hutchison Whampoa has agreed to buy Telefonica’s British mobile unit O2 for up to £10.25bn (€13.7bn), as Asia’s richest man makes his boldest bet yet to revamp his European telecoms business.

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s pursuit of mobile phone operator O2 in a potential £10bn deal represents his biggest move yet in a long buying spree of UK assets.

The board of BT was meeting yesterday to discuss the possible acquisition of British mobile operators O2 or EE, a person familiar with the situation said.

Britain’s BT Group is in early stage talks with Spain’s Telefonica on a deal to buy UK mobile operator O2, with two sources saying it has also begun negotiations with EE as it seeks a return to the British consumer mobile market.

Telecoms giant BT is in “highly preliminary” talks about buying mobile phone network O2.

Vodafone and Telefonica have used a technology conference in Spain to call for the EU to focus less on new rules for phone companies and more on Facebook and Google to reduce their dominance.

Dublin firm Shimmer Technology aims to generate turnover of €3m this year and €10m in 2015 with its sensor platform, which monitors movement and biophysical readings, writes Trish Dromey

Dublin: Last month saw Aer Lingus Regional — the airline’s secondary destination service, operated by Stobart Air (Aer Arann) — have up its 12th consecutive month of growth, with more than 130,000 passengers carried.

Three Ireland has completed the acquisition of O2 in Ireland, which was previously owned by Telefonica.