R.I.P. email. Well nearly. While the number of email accounts continues to grow rapidly, I'm predicting that email, as we know it today, will fade away as the world's most pervasive form of digital communications—possibly within three to five years. It’s not just that there are other ways by which people are communicating, it’s also because email is increasingly a risky way to communicate.
George Fong | 21 Nov | Read more
According to figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 83% of the Australian population accessed the internet last year, and in the workplace, more and more time is spent online.
Andrew Avanessian | 11 Nov | Read more
Unified Threat Management (UTM) has become popular among organisations since its emergence over five years ago. The security solution gained traction with its all-in-one approach, combining several security tools into a single device. Running UTM also saved companies, especially the smaller ones time, money and manpower. Most UTM today include a firewall, intrusion detection system (IDS), virtual private network (VPN), anti-malware, anti-spam, content and web filtering, while some vendors include other features such as advanced routing.
It goes without saying that government surveillance news dominates our media. From a global standpoint, the NSA leaks brought international attention to state organised spying. Locally, the Australian Government has been making headlines over its plans to develop legislation that will allow it to more easily access metadata from large organisations and telecoms providers to gain information on the consumers using their services in a bid to prevent acts of terrorism
David Balazsy | 03 Oct | Read more
What is cyber crime? There are a number of different ways that criminals are trying to target financial institutions. There is social engineering exploits, which is when an end-user gets an email claiming to be from their bank, but it’s really a cyber criminal. Within that email there is a link asking the end-user to confirm their account information. Cyber criminals then leverage the credentials to gain access to the user’s financial records and banking accounts. Malware is another piece to it, where criminals distribute malicious software and a user is tricked into installing a keylogger or screen scraper program on their device. This means that when an end-user enters their credentials, the program can capture all that information, allowing criminals to gain access to the account.
Crispin Kerr | 03 Oct | Read more
Lack of cybersecurity talent coupled with the increasing complexity of threats and networks, a heightened regulatory environment, and an accelerating pace of innovation is driving many organisations to look outside their walls for cybersecurity protection.
Ammar Hindi | 27 Jun | Read more
In March 2013, the Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed that hackers had penetrated its computers but failed to steal sensitive data or corrupt networks, amid growing alarm that sophisticated cyber attacks may leave banks and other organisations unaware they have been compromised.
Geoff Webb | 02 Jun | Read more
Many casualties resulted from the many wars that were fought during the last century. A high percentage of those soldiers were engaged in combat because there was no ability to opt out. Most of us would not want to go to war, but unfortunately war has a way of finding us.
Andrew Bycroft | 11 Feb | Read more
Every day there is a story in the news of a security threat causing havoc to even the largest of enterprises. It may be website defacements one day, denial of service the next and credit card data exfiltration the day after.
Andrew Bycroft | 11 Feb | Read more
Balancing security priorities with business flexibility and agility is a tough challenge. But it’s a challenge every executive management team faces as it strives to drive business growth, achieve competitive advantage and maximise operational efficiency.
Ammar Hindi | 06 Dec | Read more
It used to be easy enough to spot a bank robber. With their balaclavas and weapons of choice, the criminals would simply storm in demanding money and everyone knew exactly what was happening. While criminals still occasionally resort to traditional methods, it’s rare to see the dramatic Bonnie and Clyde-style bank heists of the 20th century.
Geoff Webb | 06 Dec | Read more
Each day, as the speedy evolution of technology emerges, newer, more complex and increasingly dangerous cyber threats come onto the battlefield, thus presenting an ever-thriving danger to organisations, governments and enterprises everywhere.
"How do you teach a person to duck a punch? You punch them in the face until they get it," said freelance information security consultant Dan Tentler, who designed Twitter's internal anti-phishing training program, at last week's Breakpoint security conference in Melbourne.
Stilgherrian | 01 Nov | Read more
Some antivirus vendors recommend against scanning inside archives to avoid a performance impact. This is because scanning the archive can mean the computer appears unresponsive or slow, but following this advice creates an opportunity for malware authors.
Brad Ellis | 21 Aug | Read more
Cyber security is the double edged sword of modern business. Because the Internet is an evolving technology that carries enormous potential and vulnerability, cyber security embraces questions of internet freedom, network architecture and the economic potential of cyberspace
Gordon Makryllos | 09 Apr | Read more
Cyber security remains one of the most dynamic fields within the technology industry. Because of the financial and political impact of cybercrime, attackers are continuously looking to innovate and outsmart security vendors and consulting companies. As a result, the IT community is perpetually engaged in a contest of strategy to combat new cyber threats. These are some of the top security threats we can expect to see developing over the next year, including top tips to combat these dangers.
Gordon Makryllos | 05 Dec | Read more
Mainstream Australian media sites now regularly mention hacking incidents carried out by the hacktivist group 'Anonymous'. The group recently defaced several prominent Australian websites, and has now also claimed to have stolen user credentials and contact information from Pizza Hut Australia.
The answer to this question is simple: no. With the developments in social media and two-way communication channels such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, it has made social privacy somewhat non-existent.
Olan Ahern | 23 Nov | Read more
The malware BKDR_ADDNEW, better known as 'DaRK DDoSseR' in the underground, is a tool that provides distributed denial of service (DDOS) capability combined with password stealing functionality. The tool costs $30 and has been available for several years.
Nart Villeneuve (Senior Threat Researcher) | 13 Nov | Read more
Botnets are controlled by sophisticated cybercriminals. Grum, the world's third-largest botnet, included a network of hundreds of thousands of infected computers perpetrating cybercrime and online fraud, impacting consumers and organizations worldwide. Hear directly from a FireEye malware expert who led the effort to take down Grum, including: • Distinct strategies for botnet takedowns • Evolution of Grum • Role of the research community in finding Grum master CnC servers • A blow-by-blow account of how the criminals tried to salvage Grum and what's next Learn how botnets operate and how research and technology from FireEye played a key role in dismantling four of the world's largest botnets since 2008, including Grum, Rustock, Ozdok/Mega-D, and Srizbi.