Industries — Opinions

Pervasive technologies and its implication on security

All of us are, to some extent, slaves to technology. Judicious use of technology is mandated. Human kind has, so far, been naïve in adopting technology with the presumption that it will always be used in the right spirit, but we have seen it being used in the wrong context over and over again. This article is about the implications of malicious use of pervasive technology.

Shantanu Bhattacharya | 13 Nov | Read more

How Can Organisations Deal Intelligently with Information Security Breaches?

Data breaches are happening more frequently, compromising larger volumes of data than ever before. We seem to hear about new data breaches every day. The number of compromised records grows, while organisations are subjected to larger financial penalties, stronger legislative and regulatory scrutiny, and tangible reputational damage. For organisations that suffer a breach, responding in an intelligent and confident manner is critical.

Steve Durbin | 13 Nov | Read more

Incident Response Plan

Do you take a fatalistic approach to cyber attack? ‘Whatever will be, will be’ is an attitude in life (and movies) that is well suited to events that evoke a spontaneous response—like who will you marry? These are the questions posed in Doris Day’s song from the Hitchcock movie ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’. They’re not appropriate for incidents which inspire fear, which Doris learns when her son is kidnapped.

Dr Claudia Johnson | 23 Oct | Read more

The cost of a security breach; it’s not just about the purse strings

Security breaches are rarely out of the news and with these reports come the significant costs resulting from each attack. However, the immediate thought is often associated with a dollar amount; for example how much money are we forfeiting through lost sales? Consequently, many think that private enterprises are the only ones that are prone to be at risk of attacks on their networks. The fact is public sector, educational institutions and non-profit organisations are just as much at risk and the potential costs are both great and varied.

Brett Moorgas | 08 Oct | Read more

Dispelling Common Myths Surrounding UTM

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.

Wana Tun | 03 Oct | Read more

Navigating the balancing act: how to support user privacy whilst maintaining control of corporate-owned data

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

Cyber crime in financial institutions

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

Seven technology predictions for 2014

The year 2014 will be where current trends will accelerate the transformation already underway in how we consume information and do business and live. Organisations will need to evaluate their information strategy to take advantage of the emerging opportunities.

Gordon Makryllos | 09 Dec | Read more

The business side of cyber security

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

The Ins and Outs of Cloud and Outsourcing

The speed at which IT is developing and the general nature of modern business means that many enterprises rely on specialists to manage our systems and applications. Economic and competitive pressures have made it imperative for organisations of all sizes to focus on their core competencies and turn to third-parties to assume responsibility for key corporate functions. The most common form of outsourcing is the cloud. The cloud simplifies many aspects of IT and the business services world.

Gordon Makryllos | 21 May | Read more