Cyber Security Weekly Podcast

Having caught up with Sam Zavaglia, Senior Engineer with Seagate in Melbourne for the Security Expo 2018 we were really impressed with his level of insight into the Seagate range. We met up in Sydney to discuss the Seagate hard drive range and the technical aspects of how these hard drives are optimised for DVRs and NVRs and tuned for 24×7 workloads in capacities up to 10TB.

Equipped with enhanced ImagePerfect™ firmware, SkyHawk helps to minimise dropped frames and downtime with a workload rating 3× that of a desktop drive and is ready to record up to 90% of the time while supporting up to 64 HD cameras. The SkyHawk AI is built for scalable AI workloads and designed to support an additional 16 AI streams while simultaneously recording footage up to 64 HD cameras.

For more information visit https://www.seagate.com/au/en/internal-hard-drives/hdd/skyhawk/ (https://www.seagate.com/au/en/internal-hard-drives/hdd/skyhawk/)

In this episode, Bruce Matthews, Director of the Melbourne Joint Cyber Security Centre speaks to Morry Morgan about the JCSC and highlights the framework and partnerships within the national security community, as well as showcasing a range of stakeholders and activities that the centre is involved with, and also citing the PageUp breach as an example.

Recorded as part of the second annual Australian Cyber Week held in Melbourne from 30 July to 3 August 2018. For more information visit https://www.cert.gov.au/jcsc (https://www.cert.gov.au/jcsc)

Related listening:

Episode 82 – 4th Joint Cyber Security Centre launched by the Hon Christian Porter MP, Australia’s Federal Attorney-General (https://www.blubrry.com/mysecurity/35437645/episode-82-4th-joint-cyber-security-centre-launched-by-the-hon-christian-porter-mp-australias-federal-attorney-general/)

Episode 62 - AustCyber's Knowledge Priorities - Interview with Mike Bareja, Program Manager - National Network

Episode 54 - Alastair MacGibbon, Australian National Cyber Security Adviser & Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) (https://www.blubrry.com/mysecurity/33301708/episode-54-alastair-macgibbon-australian-national-cyber-security-adviser-head-of-the-australian-cyber-security-centre-acsc/)

Episode 28 – Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant discussing online safety, cyber bullying and child exploitation (https://www.blubrry.com/mysecurity/30756371/episode-28-australias-esafety-commissioner-julie-inman-grant-discussing-online-safety-cyber-bullying-and-child-exploitation/)

In this episode Morry Morgan visited the ‘Security Exhibition & Conference’ in Melbourne #Security2018 and met a number of Exhibitors providing facial recognition solutions. Canadian company, Senstar (https://senstar.com/products/face-recognition/), highlights white and black lists, as well as the use of facial recognition for both security and retail sales.

Imagus (http://www.imagus.com.au/)talks about identifying ‘known associates’ and ‘persons of interest’ in solving crimes, as well as accuracy of recognition, and the use of facial recognition to provide better service to VIPs in hotels and casinos.

Morry talks to the Sydney start-up, Image Intelligence (https://imageintelligence.com/), and discusses deep learning and speed of recognition, and with Cognitec (http://www.cognitec.com/), a spinoff from Siemens, we discuss crime prevention and crowd control in airports and stadiums, as well as collection of anonymous marketing demographics.

If you have an interest in facial recognition, then you’ll enjoy this interview from the Security Exhibition & Conference 2018 in Melbourne. Recorded 26 July, 2018. #Security2018

In this interview, we discuss how Data Mining techniques and machine learning algorithms can be extremely useful when applied in covert channel detection and Domain Generation Algorithms (DGA) detection.

In the last few years, passive analysis of network traffic has become a challenging task due to the high variability of organisations’ IT networks. This often makes classical signature or even statistical detection approaches not sufficiently accurate in detecting potentially anomalous or malicious traffic, due to the lack of focus on network users’ behavioral analysis.

Machine Learning can be considered a powerful tool to extract meaningful information and build models of users’ behaviour but it does have some drawbacks. Data might in fact be corrupted or noisy and models’ creation may bring a high false positive rate. This limitation can be mitigated first by choosing descriptive features to be given to the algorithm, and second by integrating the contribution of different algorithms in order to make the structure more robust. Another possible solution is to create models not only of single network users but also of groups of users sharing some common behavioural characteristics.

Daniella is cyber track leader for the Spark Festival (a NSW festival celebrating entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship), a non-executive director and strategic advisor to IoTSec Australia (a not-for-profit organisation influencing IoT cyber security innovation) and a member of the Research Advisory Committee for the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) – a cyber security research unit of Federation University Australia.

At aizoOn Australia, Daniella is responsible for setting the strategy and leading the cyber security division across three areas of capability - product development, consulting and R&D for the Asia Pacific region.

Federica Bisio is a senior Data Scientist in aizoOn’s Cyber Security Division. Federica’s expertise includes developing data-driven algorithms for anomaly and abnormal behaviour detection, which become codified in aizoOn’s threat detection platform.

Federica obtained a PhD in Electronic Engineering, Information Technology, Robotics and Telecommunications at the University of Genoa (Italy), with an exchange program with the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, and her thesis involved Machine Learning applications in Network Security.

This interview with DAVCOR Group Managing Director Marc Cohen discusses the business decision process around the introduction of the AutoStore Robot warehouse, which resulted in impacts on business efficiencies, cost savings in warehouse space and inspired the use of robotics in other aspects of the business, including the use of two Universal Robot arms for cycle testing on locking mechanisms. Payback on the AutoStore system is less than two years on rental space alone, including 75% reduction in power usage.

This interview presents as a very interesting business efficiency and robotics discussion, which will have a broad scope of interest across industry verticals.

Recorded courtesy of DAVCOR Group, Minchinbury, NSW, 27 June 2018

Checkout the pictures and video on our Facebook pages:

https://www.facebook.com/apsmagazine/

AutoStore in action at  https://www.facebook.com/drasticnews/ (https://www.facebook.com/drasticnews/)

Further Reading:

Sydney Icon Secured: https://goo.gl/f6qpZV (https://goo.gl/f6qpZV)

To find out more and get the EKA CyberLock

https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/eka-cyberlock/ (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/eka-cyberlock/)

https://www.facebook.com/ElectronicKeyingAustralia/

In this interview we speak to Fergus Hanson, co-author with Tom Uren of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) Policy Brief #3: Australia’s Offensive Cyber Capability and we discuss the launch and implications of Policy Brief #4 Deterrence In Cyberspace – Spare the costs, spoil the bad state actor by Chris Painter. Recorded at the Australian Computer Society, Sydney, Friday 1 June 2018.

Researchers have identified more than 100 states with military and intelligence cyber units, ranging considerably in capability and compliance with international law. The US Cyber Command’s action arm, the Cyber Mission Force, is building to 6,200 military and civilian personnel, or about 10% of the ADF, and for the 2018 financial year requested a US$647 million budget allocation. China has been accused of stealing enormous quantities of intellectual property, North Korea has used cyber tools to steal money, and Russia is accused of using a range of online methods to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

This policy brief seeks to further clarify the nature of Australia’s offensive cyber capability. It recommends improving communications, using innovative staff recruitment and retention options, deepening industry engagement and reviewing classification levels in some areas.

The report is structured to the following parts:

1. What’s an offensive cyber operation?

2. Organisation, command and approvals

3. Operations against declared targets

4. Risks

5. Checks, balances and compliance with international law

6. Strengths and weaknesses

7. Future challenges and recommendations.

Australia’s Capability

On 30 June 2017 Australia became the first country to openly admit that its cyber offensive capabilities would be directed at ‘organised offshore cyber criminals’ and the then Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security, Dan Tehan, announced the formation of an Information Warfare Division within the ADF.

Australia has declared that it will use its offensive cyber capabilities to deter and respond to serious cyber incidents against Australian networks; to support military operations, including coalition operations against Daesh in Iraq and Syria; and to counter offshore cybercriminals.

This podcast interview with Deepak Nanda, President of the LA Venture Fund, not just delves into venture capital criteria for investing in cutting edge technology, but also the competitive divide between Californian cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco’s reach to Silicon Valley. LA’s version is Silicon Beach, just 20 minutes out of LA, at Marina Del Ray and Playa Vista, with millions of dollars pouring in to create a technology and innovation hub.  We also discuss other American cities re-creating themselves, like Detroit and Atlanta, and the opportunities being created in education, manufacturing and how technology may not be a threat to jobs but a saviour to jobs and creating new industries.

What are VC’s looking for? Brain computer interface and augmented reality is only just beginning, where the Internet of Things is a whole new ball game. Cyber security is seeing security protocols being introduced into the market and VCs have the expectation that cryptography and cyber security is embedded into new technology and advancements.

This conversation covers unlocking the entrepreneurial passion, acting fast and if you’re a start-up with a strong business model and ready to scale – you will enjoy this interview. 

Recorded in Los Angeles, 26 May, 2018. Special thanks to Deepak for making himself available on a Saturday afternoon and his LA hospitality.

Russ Currie, Vice President Enterprise Strategy and Arabella Hallawell, Senior Director for Strategy discuss their roles in guiding service delivery and instrumentation development for Netscout Systems. The discussion moves into the key tech industry trends of NFV/SDN, IoT and 5G and the critical importance of network visibility and cybersecurity.

Netscout assures digital business services against disruptions in availability, performance, and security by providing real-time, pervasive visibility, and insights to customers seeking to accelerate and secure their digital transformation. The Netscout nGenius service assurance solutions provide real-time, contextual analysis of service, network, and application performance. Arbor security solutions protect against DDoS attacks that threaten availability and advanced threats that infiltrate networks to steal critical business assets.

Digital transformation makes IT a fundamental line of business, says Arabella Hallawell and creating an agile environment when the DevOps are approaching closer to the operational functions will find better customer satisfaction. Adaptive service intelligence provides the necessary insight into what is happening across the organisation.

Recorded at the NetEvents Global Press & Analyst Summit – Innovators in Cloud, IoT AI & Security, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California, USA, 26 May 2018. #NetEvents18

Visit www.netscout.com (http://www.netscout.com/)

NetEvents Blog: http://www.netevents.org/news/blog (http://www.netevents.org/news/blog)

In this episode we dive into Intent Based Networking with Mansour Karam, CEO and founder of Apstra, Inc., based in Menlo Park, California.

Apstra has pioneered Intent-Based Networking and Intent-Based Analytics to simplify how data centre networks are built and operated. The privately funded company has recently announced a deployment by Awnix, a provider of cloud services and products, for the first AOS supported deployment of OpenSwitch (OPX) on Dell Z9100-ON switches in a Tier 1 service provider production network. AOS is a hardware-inclusive, closed-loop intent-based distributed operating system that automates the full lifecycle of network operations and enables the network to configure itself, fix itself and defend itself.

The telecom service provider deployment includes a combined solution as part of a hybrid cloud for OpenStack Deployments and is part of an open IaaS network infrastructure offering. The Awnix, Dell EMC, Apstra solution provides a cloud platform that increases business agility through an autonomous or Self-Operating Network™ that delivers log-scale improvements in CapEx, OpEx and capacity. 

Recorded at the NetEvents Global Press & Analyst Summit – Innovators in Cloud, IoT AI & Security, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California, USA, 26 May 2018. #NetEvents18

For more information visit www.apstra.com or the Apstra Blog

In this episode we are joined in Singapore by Ian Yip, APAC CTO at McAfee (https://www.mcafee.com/) and discuss the impact of Singapore’s Cyber Security Act and the key regional trends being observed. We also discuss the business structure and scale of McAfee and dive into McAfee’s latest Threat Report, June 2018 (https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/assets/reports/rp-quarterly-threats-jun-2018.pdf) with highlights around the latest cyber campaigns - Gold Dragon Expands the Reach of Olympics Attacks: Lazarus Rises Again, Targeting Cryptocurrency Users; and Advanced Data-Stealing Implants GhostSecret and Bankshot Have Global Reach and Implications.

Ian also provides valuable advice as to the vulnerabilities of blockchain technology and concludes with insight into communicating to the Enterprise C-Suite and an upcoming McAfee whitepaper.

Also in recent news, McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team (http://www.mcafee.com/) have revealed in an investigation into underground hacker marketplaces, a major international airport’s security system (including building security automation) for sale on the dark web via a Russian ‘RDP shop’. The asking price: just $10.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary Microsoft protocol that enables remote administrator access to a PC, something great for solving IT challenges, but potentially devastating if in the wrong hands. In this instance, any hacker wanting to gain control of the airport’s system only needed a few dollars to access to a compromised machine and potentially carry out a myriad of large-scale attacks that could have severe consequences for the airport and its customers. For example, RDP can be used as an entry point to send spam, create false security alerts, steal data, credentials and even mine cryptocurrency. As we saw with the recent SamSam ransomware campaign against several US institutions, RDP was used to enact the attack and claim ransoms as high as $40k.

Recent trends in dark web marketplaces are also outlined in the research. One key finding is that RDP shops are growing in their size and abundance on the dark web - ranging from 15 to more than 40,000 RDP connections for sale at Ultimate Anonymity Service (UAS), a Russian business and the largest active shop they researched.

You can find further details of the attack in McAfee’s latest blog post (https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/organizations-leave-backdoors-open-to-cheap-remote-desktop-protocol-attacks/).

Recorded in Singapore, July 4, 2018. Special thanks to McAfee for sponsoring the inaugural Cyber Risk Meetup (https://www.cyberriskmeetup.com/) in Singapore on July 3.