Cyber Security Weekly Podcast

As our growing dependence on online identities extends to nearly every aspect of our lives, the risk of malicious theft and accidental breaches, companies are being held increasingly responsible to protect the security of the personal and company data they are entrusted with. But how are companies, and their Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), responding to this expectation?

Interview with Mathew Newfield (https://www.unisys.com/offerings/security-solutions/thought%20leader/mathew-newfield-id-3835), Unisys CISO, during his visit to Australia and his CISO perspective on the new challenges and expectation on companies to protect data. Mathew discusses how a global company like Unisys is responding to increasing risks, consumer expectation and new data protection rules that include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in Australia the Privacy Act.

Unisys reported US$2.83 billion revenue for 2018 and has almost 22,000 employees globally. , and is in the business of building high-performance, security-centric solutions for banks, government agencies (eg Defence, Immigration, citizen services) and commercial organisations (especially aviation and healthcare).

With 55 Fortune 500 companies amongst its 1200 clients globally, with 150 in Asia Pacific and 240 government agencies worldwide, Unisys manages 16 Data Centers (Unisys and Co-Location), 5 Security Operation Centers (SOCs), 15 Service Desks and 12 Command Centers.

The Unisys Security Index (https://australiansecuritymagazine.com.au/australians-concerned-about-identity-and-data-theft-on-public-wi-fi-new-unisys-security-index/), released 10 July, shows that Australians are more concerned about data theft than the threat of war or terrorism. I’ve attached the media release for your review.

According to the Index:

* 57 per cent of Australians are seriously concerned about unauthorised access to their personal data

* 56 per cent are seriously concerned about bankcard fraud (up 4 per cent from 52 per cent in 2018)

* 54 per cent are seriously concerned about the risk of hacking or viruses.

The safety of personal information is the top ranked concern for Australians; making trust a key issue for organisations and agencies responsible for this data.

The index shows that the police are the most trusted when it comes to sharing personal information. According to the results, two out of three Australians (66 per cent) support police agencies sharing personal information with other law enforcement agencies in Australia (65 per cent) or overseas (66 per cent).

This compares with just 16 per cent of Australians who trust financial service providers to share personal financial information with other financial service providers to offer customers a single point of contact for multiple services.

The report also explores Australian’s security concerns when attending large scale events and found that Australians are just as concerned about cyber threats (43%) as they are about physical threats (43%) when attending large-scale events. One in five have cancelled or considered changing their plans to attend a large-scale event, and there was extreme concern nationally around using public Wi-Fi at large scale events as it poses a threat of personal or credit card data being stolen.

Interview recorded 11 July, 2019, Sydney, courtesy of Unisys.

Interview with Mr. Walter Lee, Evangelist and Government Relations Leader, NEC Corporation, Singapore. Walter provides leadership in advocacy and strategic partnerships with government agencies and strategic partners across the world for the co-creation of innovative solutions for smart and safer cities.

Walter participated in a panel titled “ISIL/Daesh 2.0: Further development and the sharing of identifiers including biometrics – Are we jointly prepared for returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTF)?”

INTERPOL World was officially opened by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Home Affairs today. INTERPOL World sets the stage for all stakeholders from law enforcement, government bodies, academia and the industry to co-create, engage in conversations and form beneficial collaborations for faster and more accurate responses to security challenges of the future.

INTERPOL World is an event owned by INTERPOL and is supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs and Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau. The event is also facilitated with industry insights provided by PricewaterhouseCoopers Risk Services.

Recorded 2 July 2019, INTERPOL World 2019, Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, Singapore. MySecurity Media were media partners to the event and coordinated an Australian Delegation Luncheon as part of the event. For a Full Editor's Wrap-up visit here (https://www.asiapacificsecuritymagazine.com/interpol-world-2019-editor-insights-takeaways/)

Interview with Jamie Norton, Chief Information Security Officer with the Australian Taxation Office. Jamie discusses the day-to-day role of the CISO, governance frameworks and reporting structure, with the CISO reporting to the CTO.

The interview discusses the challenges of cybersecurity for large federal government agencies, skills and training, vendors and procurement and maintaining user/staff/stakeholder awareness around cybersecurity and public scams using the ATO brand.

The call to action is to maintain public awareness of good cyber hygiene practices and to highlight the ATO and Stay Smart Online initiate for Tax Time 2019 - Relevant Link is https://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/get-involved/see-it-action/cyber-safety-tax-time-2019 (https://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/get-involved/see-it-action/cyber-safety-tax-time-2019)

Recorded in Canberra, 9 July 2019.

Interview with Tony Vizza, Director for Cyber Security Advocacy - APAC at (ISC)² and presenting at the ASIAL Conference, part of the Security Expo 2019, 24 - 26 July, International Convention Centre, Sydney.

Tony is responsible for Cyber Security Advocacy initiatives for the Asia-Pacific region for (ISC)², the world's largest not-for-profit association of certified cyber security professionals. The interview discusses IT/OT convergence and Tony's scheduled preentation "Navigating Complex Risk Environment & Managing Challenges of Cyber Physical Security Threats"

To attend - visit www.securityexpo.com.au (http://www.securityexpo.com.au) or for more information on (ISC)² visit www.ISC2.org (https://www.ISC2.org)

Recorded 13 June 2019, Sydney courtesy of Diversified Exhibitions.

Interview with Kasada founder and CEO, Sam Crowther, based in Chicago USA about how the company will leverage a new capital injection to accelerate its engineering, research & development, and go-to-market expansion.

Kasada, a leading Australian cyber security startup, underwent a $6.5 million capital raise with support from the CSIRO-backed venture firm Main Sequence Ventures and the Westpac-backed Reinventure Group.

Kasada Polyform detects and mitigates malicious web traffic that other security measures are unable to identify. Kasada’s web security service protects websites and web applications in real-time from user account takeovers, fraud, data-scraping and other attacks that significantly disrupt user experience of websites. Kasada Polyform also reduces bot-related network bandwidth and computing infrastructure costs, and improves the effectiveness of digital marketing. The demand for better web security continues to accelerate because of the increasing volume and sophistication of criminal activity.

Further Reading:

Australia’s Growing Bot Threat Revealed https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/australias-growing-bot-threat-revealed/ (https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/australias-growing-bot-threat-revealed/)

Helping humanity’s battle against bots https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/helping-humanitys-battle-against-bots/ (https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/helping-humanitys-battle-against-bots/)

REPORT - Bots Down Under - https://www.mysecuritymarketplace.com/product/bots-down-under/ (https://www.mysecuritymarketplace.com/product/bots-down-under/)

Interview with Phil Hall, Cyber Security Awareness and Intell Manager with AMP, recorded as part of AMP Amplify 2019.

In his role, Phil brings to life real cyber threats through various immersive simulations, awareness talks and presentations, as well as targeted awareness for all levels of AMP staff.  He is passionate about all things ‘cyber’, and spends his time performing reconnaissance for AMP threat communities, and presenting to all levels of staff.

Phil presented to seven schools as part of AMP Amplify, taking the opportunity to call out some tactics for ensuring cyber security, with specific examples relevant to high school students.

AMP, with about 6,500 staff, is a financial services company in Australia and New Zealand providing superannuation and investment products, insurance, financial advice and banking products including home loans and savings accounts. AMP shares are included in the Australian Securities Exchange's S&P/ASX 50 index.

Recorded in Sydney, 7 June, 2019. #AMPAmplify2019

Interview with Scott Johnson, General Manager for Fortify at Micro Focus, visiting Sydney as part of the Micro Focus Realize 2019 events, held in Sydney Melbourne and Canberra.

In his role, Scott leads Fortify’s product vision and strategy for the market’s leading AppSec offerings. He is responsible for both on premise and SaaS (Fortify on Demand) based solutions covering SAST, DAST, RASP and IAST. Under his direction, Fortify was once again (8th consecutive time) designated as the Gartner Magic Quadrant leader in Application Security Testing in 2018. Scott has successfully led efforts in support of DevSecOps and AppSec Orchestration leading to increased revenue and customer growth.

Scott offers a unique blend of enterprise and start-up experience with prior product management and leadership roles at IBM ISS where he led award winning endpoint and network security portfolios. Other highlights include security and technology product leadership positions with Ionic Security, Unisys, Nivis and b2b market exchange platform provider, Idapta. Scott also co-founded, Ho-Chunk, Inc., helping raise $8m to create a $250m diversified holding company for the Winnebago Indian Tribe of Nebraska.

Recorded 5 June, 2019 in North Sydney, courtesy of Micro Focus.

Recorded on 6 June 2019 on the Quayside Room Balcony, Museum of Contemporary Arts, overlooking Circular Quay, Sydney, courtesy of AMP Amplify 2019. (Apologies for the challenging audio conditions and resulting quality - full transcript below)

Welcome to the Cyber Security Weekly Podcast (https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/interview-with-renowned-canadian-astronaut-colonel-chris-hadfield-cybersecurity-in-space-and-future-of-space-exploration/) and recording on a beautiful sunny morning in Sydney. My name is Chris Cubbage (‘CC’) and we are joined by a very special guest, as part of the AMP Amplify 2019 Forum, and our special guest is Canadian astronaut and now the custodian of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo), Colonel Chris Hadfield (‘CH’). Chris thanks for joining us.

CH: A beautiful Sydney morning here Chris, thanks.

CC: You've been to Sydney many times and you've flown over Sydney thousands of times I'm sure. You gave a keynote session to close AMP Amplify yesterday afternoon, speaking to about 150 people. It's an inspiring and awesome session and you received a standing ovation at the end. I'm sure you get that around the world?

CH: It's a huge compliment. Having been off the earth three times. That's about half a year on board a spaceship, gives you time to contemplate and think about the variety of life on Earth but also the commonality of life on Earth. And as far as we can tell, the absolute, unique preciousness of it. So, to come to Sydney and talk, essentially to a bunch of strangers, about ideas and about possibilities and have them honour me by standing up and applause at the end, it’s a wonderful privilege.

CC: Well you mentioned there's ten thousand ideas bolted together on the Space Shuttle and the launch, and those types of things. For our audience which is predominately cybersecurity technology, you spent many months on the International Space Station. There's a lot of activity in Australia around the new space agency. We're seeing the militarisation of space. But one of the things I wanted to capture from your session yesterday. You're dealing in that advanced tech environment and you talk about leadership, team building and ultimately, again linking it back to cybersecurity, is preparing for failure. The inevitable aspect of failure. Just your thoughts around that first and then certainly we'll grab your ideas and experiences in cyber security and space.

CH: You know Chris I think it's even more than the inevitability of failure, it's the necessity of failure.

If you want to tiptoe around everything and never have anything go wrong. It's almost impossible to accomplish anything. You have to not only accept the fact that things are going to fail, things are going to go wrong, but eagerly look for it. Try and push your system under as safe and early, as circumstances possibly can, to the point of failure. It's why we do non-destructive testing. But we often, when things get expensive enough or complex enough, we sort of stop thinking of the necessity for failure and instead try and cross our fingers and hope for perfection. And just because we're hoping and crossing, doesn't mean that's going to happen.

There's been an enormous change in space exploration over the last 15 years as a result of shifting that mindset. Of going from the way that the governments have traditionally approached space travel,

Interview with Mauricio Sabena, systems engineer manager, ANZ, Palo Alto Networks, based in North Sydney and discussion on using data science to improve threat prevention.

Using a data science approach to cybersecurity and threat prevention can help organisations detect subtle malicious activity more easily, overcoming the challenge created by cybercriminals’ increasingly-automated approach. Businesses need to understand the potential challenges of using a data science approach as well as the possible benefits, so they can leverage data to outsmart cybercriminals. Palo Alto Networks has identified four key requirements for a data science approach to cybersecurity: 1. The right amount of quality data. Applying machine learning to data to automate decision-making is an ideal way to combat threats but, if the data isn’t accurate, up to date, or comprehensive enough, the machine won’t learn effectively and the approach won’t work. Likewise, security information and event management (SIEM) platforms aren’t built with the massive computing power that’s required for big data analysis. Running algorithms on big data lakes becomes difficult and costly, and it’s harder for businesses to manage these projects in-house. Cloud-based solutions can address this challenge because it’s easier to manage resources effectively and elastically in the cloud. Furthermore, customers will depend on security vendors that have huge amounts of high-quality data already, and will let customers run their algorithms on that data. Most security teams only have access to a few weeks of historical data; a vendor-enabled approach will overcome this challenge. 2. Sophisticated algorithms. Data science and machine learning rely on human-made algorithms. These algorithms need to be strong to deliver desirable outcomes. It’s important to put the data in context by looking at all apps, users, and content. This leads to the best quality data. It’s impossible to identify every malicious activity in isolation. Leveraging large amounts of good quality data teaches the machine what’s normal and abnormal. This makes it easier to detect malicious attackers in the network even if they’re exceptionally stealthy. 3. An open mind to false positives. Tuning processes to stop every threat often results in a high number of false positives that must be investigated, leading to unnecessarily-high workloads. Conversely, reducing the number of false positives may result in some attacks getting through. But, with the right data and algorithms, it is possible to lower the number of false positives and get more accurate alerts. 4. Historical records. When it comes to applying data science, historical information is essential. In general, most businesses keep a few weeks’ worth of alert logs, especially if they receive thousands of alerts every day. However, it would be more useful to retain six or seven weeks of data to provide enough of a baseline to determine what activity is normal and what isn’t. Then, when each alert is generated it can be actioned quickly and the security team won’t be overburdened with alerts.

For the full article visit https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/using-data-science-to-improve-threat-prevention/ (https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/using-data-science-to-improve-threat-prevention/)

Recorded on 22 May, 2019 at Palo Alto Networks, North Sydney.

Interview with Cricket Liu, chief DNS architect and Jasper Chik, Systems Engineer Manager ANZ at Infoblox during the 'Australian Cricket Tour' to Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

Attackers are executing DNSpionage attacks by hijacking and compromising millions of email and other credentials from a number of government and private sector entities. They then manipulate the DNS records of organisations to intercept and record their network traffic in this vast espionage campaign. As a result, users are pointed to malicious web and mail servers.

DNS serves as a kind of phone book for the Internet by translating human-friendly website names into numeric Internet addresses that are easier for computers to manage. When it’s tampered with, it becomes difficult for anyone to discern whether what they are seeing online is legitimate.

These sophisticated attacks were first identified in November 2018 and there have been several other public reports of additional attacks since then. Most recently, DNSpionage attacks have been causing further concern because the attackers (allegedly from Iran) have changed their tactics with new tools and malware to focus their attacks and better hide their activities.

Cricket Liu, chief DNS architect at Infoblox, was in Sydney to discuss what DNSpionage actually is and the extent of the problem. We also discuss why Australian organisations should be concerned and how they can protect their businesses and users from attack.

Cricket is one of the world’s leading experts on DNS and serves as the liaison between Infoblox and the DNS community. Cricket is a prolific speaker and author, having written a number of books including “DNS and BIND,” one of the most widely used references in the field, now in its fifth edition.

Recorded in Sydney, 21 May 2019 and courtesy of Infoblox. For more information visit www.infoblox.com (https://www.infoblox.com)