Cyber Law Watch

Insight on how cyber risk is being mitigated and managed across the globe.

1
Biggest data leak in German history
2
Marriott Hotel reveals further details about records impacted by data breach; revises down number of affected records
3
Emergency warning system hacked
4
So you plug your shiny Tesla in to charge…
5
Android users beware the 21st century Trojan horse
6
What do you need to know about the encryption killing legislation?
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Cybersecurity: location, location, location
8
Encryption bill to give unprecedented power
9
Marriott Hotel – time to change your passwords!
10
China in breach of cyber-security pact

Biggest data leak in German history

By Rob Pulham, Warwick Anderson and Wendy Mansell

A 20 year old German man orchestrated a serious and sophisticated data breach which affected more than 1000 people.

The attack was focused on German and European politicians at all levels including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Frank Walter Steinmeier and hundreds of public figures and celebrities.

The 20 year old hacker took to Twitter to drip feed the information depicted as an advent calendar by releasing new data each day in December. Information exposed included contact details, credit card and financial information, chat records, photographs and other personal information.

Reuters’ reported that the hacker is a student who lives at home with his parents, has no formal computer education and was motivated by irritation over statements made by politicians and public figures.

The widespread nature of this attack has resulted in a number of government officials calling for tighter laws.

It is clear that no-one is safe from a data breach – even those elected representatives who enact the laws designed to protect against them.

Marriott Hotel reveals further details about records impacted by data breach; revises down number of affected records

By Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Keely O’Dowd

Late last year the Marriott Hotel announced that it had suffered a data breach, which affected approximately 500 million guests who made a hotel reservation using its Starwood reservation system. Details about the data breach can be found in our previous blog.

Read More

Emergency warning system hacked

By Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Allison Wallace

A new year, and a new hacking incident – this time, it was the Early Warning Network (EWN) – a text and email service used by councils around Australia to warn locals of emergency situations.

On its Facebook page, EWN stated that a hacker was able to access its system, sending out messages via text, email and landline stating that EWN had been hacked and that the receiver’s personal data was not safe. The message also included links to support email addresses and a website.

EWN said that the hack was quickly identified and systems shut down, with no-one’s personal information compromised during the attack. The attack is believed to have originated within Australia, involving compromised login details.

While EWN said that personal information was not compromised by this incident, it serves as a timely reminder for businesses to check and test their information security processes and data breach response plans – and if one isn’t in place, to implement one.  The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner reported that it received 550 notifications of data breaches from the time the notifiable data breach legislation commenced on 22 February 2018 to 30 September 2018.

If you’d like to find out more about the legislation, or what your business can do to protect itself, check out this 60-second video by Cameron Abbott.

So you plug your shiny Tesla in to charge…

By Cameron Abbott and Wendy Mansell

…and suddenly you are at risk of starting fires.

We all know that these days the Internet of Things is a favourite for cyberattacks, with the latest target being home charging stations for electric cars.

Many home charging stations are controlled remotely by mobile apps, which seem to provide the perfect opportunity for hackers to cause harm.

Hackers cleverly can infiltrate an account and turn charging off or even worse, they may change the current to the extent it can start a fire.

Once again the industry needs to take security seriously for IoT and have the same diligence as IT networks now do.

Android users beware the 21st century Trojan horse

By Cameron Abbott and Sara Zokaei Fard

Here’s one to keep and eye out for – research from ESET has discovered an Android Trojan that attempts to steal funds from PayPal accounts. The malware is distributed by third-party apps rather than the Google Playstore. Once the app is launched, no functionality is provided. Instead, the app terminates and the icon is hidden. When the victim launches their PayPal App, the malware attempts to steal funds.

The interesting thing about this malware is that unlike most, it does not focus on phishing. This malware attacks the victim and attempts to instantly transfer money to the attacker’s account, when the user launches their PayPal App. The malware is able to hijack the legitimate PayPal App through the malware downloaded through the third-party app. This raises concerns of what applications on Android mobile devices will be attacked next.

What do you need to know about the encryption killing legislation?

By Cameron Abbott and Wendy Mansell

There are now three ways a government agency can gain access to encrypted information:

1. ask you to voluntarily help them
2. demand your help
3. force you build new functions in your systems to help them.

As a company if you don’t comply you could be hit with a fine of up to almost $10 million dollars.

You do have a defence though – if the requests will undermine your encryption systems, making them inherently less secure you do not have comply.

If you would like to know more about how the new legislation will affect you feel free to contact us for any assistance or information.

Cybersecurity: location, location, location

Authors: Cameron Abbott and Sara Zokaei Fard

According to a report published by BitSight on 4 December 2018, “Are the New European Cybersecurity Regulations Working?”, Europe is one of the only exceptions to a global decline in security performance. There are regular occurrences of cybersecurity compromises around the world, with some sectors such as Technology consistently performing weaker than others. Companies in the Finance sector continue to be the world’s strongest cybersecurity performers, due to their high regulative overlay. While “continental cybersecurity performance continues to decline”, in Europe, cybersecurity performance is improving to an extent unlike any other continent in the world.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) officially went into effect in the European Union in May 2018. The GDPR is a landmark European Union law, that sets significant punitive fines at up to 4% of global revenue if organisations do not implement a broad set of cybersecurity requirements in certain circumstances. In the months following the implementation of the GDPR, European security performance has consistently improved and now significantly surpasses all other continents. In this same time frame, Oceania’s cybersecurity performance has spiralled downwards.

BitSight states “the chorus for GDPR-style regulation is growing internationally”. The statistics certainly support this.  However others argue that countries like the US demonstrate significant competitive advantage in developing highly valuable big data and social media intellectual property because of the lower regulatory environment encouraging innovators.  The value to economies of these industry segments is significant.

Encryption bill to give unprecedented power

By Cameron Abbott and Wendy Mansell

The Coalition government is attempting to pass large-scale decryption reforms which will give sweeping powers to law enforcement agencies for overt and covert computer access.

The reforms have caused significant controversy as they may force tech companies and communications providers to modify their services, creating “systemic weaknesses” for intelligence agencies to exploit. However many point out these same vulnerabilities may be utilised by criminals.

Further the potential repercussions of these reforms may undermine consumers’ privacy, safety and trust through unprecedented access to private communications. This could have anti-competitive effects, as the reputations of Australian software developers and hardware manufacturers will suffer within international markets.

At the same time, the harsh reality that terrorists and organised crime increasingly utilise these technologies to evade surveillance highlights a very clear problem for law enforcement authorities.

We won’t seek to suggest where the balance between these interests should lie, but the debate rages on. Stay tuned.

Marriott Hotel – time to change your passwords!

Authors: Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

 On Friday, 30 November 2018 the Marriott Hotel announced that it had suffered a data breach, we are all getting a little numb to large breaches but this one is one of the biggest in recent times.

The Marriott revealed that over a four year period, up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation using the Starwood reservation system for a hotel within the Marriott umbrella on or before 10 September 2014 may have had their data compromised. For approximately 327 million guests, information that may have been comprised includes a combination of name, address, phone number, email address, password, Starwood Preferred Guest account information, date of birth, gender, payment card numbers, arrival and departure information, reservation date and communication preferences.

Most hotel booking/POS systems have been attacked in recent years and these attacks have proven difficult to detect and trace through to understand the impact, it takes time and significant resources.  If you have used the Starwood reservation system – it is a good time to change the password and update passwords anywhere else you use those same or similar credentials.

China in breach of cyber-security pact

By Cameron Abbott and Wendy Mansell

It has been a fairly turbulent week in the cyber-espionage space following accusations that China’s Ministry of Security Services is behind the surge of intellectual property theft from Australian companies.

The news that the persistent attacks on Australian IP are perhaps a State sponsored campaign by the Chinese government is concerning as it suggests that China are in breach of several international and bilateral agreements.

In 2015, an agreement was made between Chinese President Xi Jinping and former President Obama, that the U.S and China would not steal intellectual property from one another for commercial gain. This was furthered at the November 2015, G20 Summit, where the cyber-theft of IP was accepted as the norm.

Following on from this in September 2017, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Chinese Premier Li Kequiang promised that neither country would engage in cyber-theft of intellectual property and commercial secrets.

Reports of cyber-theft declined immediately after these agreements, however in recent months they have ramped up again.

A U.S Trade Representative report released this week confirms that despite any international agreements, China has continued engaging in cyber-espionage and the theft of intellectual property. Further the report states that not only is China likely to be in breach of these agreements, but the attacks have “increased in frequency and sophistication”.

Notably in July of this year, China was linked to the cyber-breach of Australian National University. This attack was particularly disturbing given that ANU is a leading university involved in key areas of Australian technological, scientific, defence and commercial research.  It is fascinating that cyber attacks and theft are a “norm” that is accepted within our overall international relationships.  Physical acts of a similar nature would not be so easily accepted.

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