Cybersecurity – Page 9 – Cyber Law Watch

Cybersecurity vulnerability revealed after NSW Government agency’s 49-day hack

Mar 07 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

The NSW Government’s vulnerability to hacking has been exposed in a report by state’s auditor-general, in which it was revealed that one government agency took 49 days to shut down a hack.

This hack started with an email account of the unnamed agency being compromised and used to send out “phishing” emails to get the credentials of finance staff members. By day 20, 300 staff had clicked on the bogus link in the phishing email. 200 email accounts ended up being under the control of the hackers.

Cybersecurity is only one part of security – a filing cabinet could be your highest risk

Feb 09 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

No matter how much you spend on cybersecurity technology, data breaches can occur in the most basic ways, for example by leaving an old filing cabinet lying around. This demonstrates the need for a holistic approach to information security.

Recently, highly confidential government papers were discovered inside two locked filing cabinets that were purchased at a second-hand furniture shop in Canberra. What likely happened was a public servant overseeing an office clean up unwittingly sold the filing cabinets containing state secrets to the furniture shop.

Fitness tracking app reveals US army secrets?

Jan 29 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Allison Wallace

Sometimes you don’t need a “hack” to have a cybersecurity issue. The locations of several US military bases in the Middle East seem to have been inadvertently revealed through US soldiers’ use of fitness tracking devices, and the fitness tracking app Strava. Read More

Tech giants scramble as gigantic vulnerability revealed

Jan 09 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

In one of the largest cybersecurity scares in history, researchers revealed two CPU vulnerabilities for practically all computers manufactured in the last two decades which could allow hackers to gain access to stored data.

The co-existence of open data and privacy in a digital world

Dec 22 2017

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Giles Whittaker

Earlier this week researchers from the University of Melbourne released a report on the successful re-identification of Australian patient medical data that formed part of a de-identified open dataset.

In September 2016, the researchers were able to re-identify the longitudinal medical billing records of 10% of Australians, which equates to about 2.9 million people. The report outlines the techniques the researches used to re-identify the data and the ease at which this can be done with the right know-how and skill set (ie someone with an undergraduate computing degree could re-identify the data).

At first glance, the report exposes the poor handling of the dataset by the Department of Health. Which brings into focus the need for adequate contractual obligations regarding use and handling of personal information, and the need to ensure adequate liability protections are addressed even where the party’s intentions are for all personal information to be de-identified. The commercial risk with de-identified data has shown to be the equivalent of a dormant volcano.

Malware with your coffee? Starbucks customers sent to the virtual mines… to find bitcoins

Dec 20 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

“Free” Wi-Fi isn’t necessarily so. The Wi-Fi provided in a Starbucks store in Buenos Aires was recently discovered to be planting malware onto customer’s laptops. This is another lesson in how cybersecurity can affect even the most innocuous corner-store businesses.

Is nothing safe? New malware targets industrial control systems

Dec 19 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

I’m sure I saw this in Die Hard 4 but “life imitates art”. A new type of malware has been discovered in a very rare field of operation for hackers: attacking industrial control systems. Cybersecurity firm FireEye has been tight-lipped in detailing the attack, but has indicated that it was against “a critical infrastructure organization” which inadvertently caused operations to shut down. The attack is also reminiscent of the infamous “Stuxnet” virus that was used against Iranian nuclear power plants in 2010. Read More

Cybersecurity in the age of the Internet of Things

Dec 06 2017

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Harry Crawford

The Internet of Things (IoT) allows unprecedented interconnectivity for consumers, and unfortunately for those consumers, hackers as well.

The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) recently released a report to provide insight into the security requirements of IoT and good practices recommendations on preventing and mitigating cyber-attacks against IoT systems. The report even includes examples of IoT cyber security attack scenarios.

Amazon Web Services announces Internet of Things (IoT) security service

Dec 04 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Giles Whittaker

Amazon Web Services rolled out an IoT service called IoT Device Defender to limit risks from unsecured IoT devices. The service will monitor an entire fleet of devices for compliance policies and best practices. As such, an organization can set the normal operational parameters and policies for a given fleet of devices and then Device Defender will make sure those policies are enforced.

A New Type of Cyberattack: AI-Powered Cyberattacks

Nov 17 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

Researchers are warning that AI threatens to increase the sophistication and effectiveness of cyberattacks, according to a recent blog post by the Wall Street Journal.

Tag:Cybersecurity