Do you process, transmit or store more than 10,000 financial transactions per year?
YesNo, less than 10,000
Do you use and keep up to date firewalls and anti-virus protection for all systems?
YesNo
Do you use third parties to complete audits of your system and security on a regular basis?
YesNO
Are all portable devices password protected? (mobile phones, laptops, tablets, etc)
YesNo
Do you have encryption requirements for all data including portable media?
YesNo
Do you have back-up and recovery procedures for business critical systems, data and info assets?
YesNo
Do you outsource any part of your network, including storage?
Yes, we use third party providers.No, all managed in house
Do you store sensitive information on web servers?
YesNo
Do you know of any loss payments, fines or penalties being made on your behalf?
YesNo
Are you aware of any matter which might give rise to a claim or loss under such insurance?
YesNo
Have you suffered any loss or claim but not limited to a regulatory, governmental or administrative action brought against you, or any investigation or information request concerning any handling of personal info?
YesNo
The applicant or any subsidiaries have any knowledge of any loss payments, fines or penalties being made on behalf of any applicant or any person proposed for coverage any cyber policy or similar insurance?
YesNo
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Lloyd’s of London better known as Lloyd’s is a corporate body which brings together multiple financial backers to pool and spread risk. These financial backers are grouped into syndicates, the syndicates referred to as underwriters or members are a collection of corporations and private individuals. In 2015, there were 84 syndicates that wrote £26.69 billion of gross premiums on business placed by 242 Lloyd’s brokers globally.
In the insurance industry Lloyd’s is one of, if not the biggest player with their syndicates having international bases and insight from markets around the globe.
In the past cyber insurance has been a relatively unknown product but this is all changing faster than the majority of businesses can keep up with. Expert predictions for 2017 are already indicating a lot more to come with no end in sight for historical breaches such as the 2014 Yahoo breach which was only discovered in 2016.
The current Chief Executive Officer for Lloyd’s and the first female CEO in the insurance market’s 328-year history is Dame Inga Beale. Heading the insurance market behemoth with regular insight into global insurance markets puts Mrs. Beale at the forefront of international business risk.
Inga Beale, Lloyd’s CEO
Beale spoke with Intelligent Insurer regarding the increase in businesses of all sizes taking up cyber policies over recent years.
“In Australia, Lloyd’s has seen the amount of cyber insurance being purchased increase 168-fold in the last two years, as the risk becomes more of a concern for businesses.”
“In 2016 we’ve seen highly publicised cyber-attacks on some of the biggest corporate and retail names in the UK and globally. The effect of these breaches is multi-layered – besides business interruption, they can have a long lasting reputational impact and seriously affect the bottom line,” Beale, said.
“The problem is that I think there’s a slight disconnect between clients and their understanding of what’s on offer, and perhaps even a lack of understanding within the insurance sector,” Beale said while speaking at CFC Underwriting’s Cyber Symposium event in London last Thursday.
Mandatory breach notification laws
“What we have seen elsewhere in the world is as soon as you’ve got some regulation out there, a requirement for businesses to report breaches when there is a loss of personal data, that is one of the key drivers for elevating the risk up to the boardroom.” Beale stated.
Mandatory data breach reporting laws have been passed in the United States and other countries so far with the Australian bill passing through parliament at the time of writing. Under the new bill, organisations that determine they have been breached or have lost data are required to report the incident, and notify customers that are directly impacted or considered “at risk”.
Organisations and individuals that don’t will face a range of penalties, including fines of $360,000 for individuals and $1.8 million for organisations.
Safeguard your business with cyber insurance.
Why Cyber Insurance?
“I’m afraid we no longer live in a world where you can prevent breaches taking place, instead it is about how you manage them and what measures you have in place to protect your business and importantly, your customers. As recent events have shown, hard-earned reputations can be lost in a flash if you do not have the correct plans in place.”
“There are two types of businesses. Ones who are being hacked and those who don’t know they are being hacked” Inga Beale.
“Insurance can play a critical role in helping businesses in this environment, not just in terms of cover for any financial losses, but for the support regarding meeting regulatory obligations and dealing with potential operational and reputational fall-outs.
The evolving cyber threat and new stricter regulations will change the way businesses are impacted by cyber incidents: they will have to deal with business interruption, financial penalties, regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage in a way they haven’t done before. All of these could be serious threats to a business’s revenue, share price or even survival.
That’s why, today, Lloyd’s views cyber as one of the most complex, current and critical risk businesses face.
Future expectations
“Our research has shown that cyber risk increasingly sits at the most senior level of business, and although the UK and Europe are still lagging behind the US in terms of take up of cyber coverage, the Lloyd’s market has seen a threefold increase on cyber business over the past two years, and we expect it to continue to grow in 2017.” Beale said.
With all reports for 2017 indicating a continued growth for cyber crime and mandatory reporting laws coming into effect around the globe, the time for robust cyber insurance and cyber security practices is now.
Have you ever wondered what the financial incentive for cyber criminals is? Many experts are reporting a staggering $1 billion was taken in from ransomware alone in 2016 not counting the other options for cyber crime.
For years we have repeatedly seen stories in the media about shadowy criminals making purchases with your credit card online and the onus being put onto the financial institution to identify,block and refund these transactions. Today things have escalated drastically and the black market for information has a broad range of options from online reward point accounts, medical records, auction site accounts and tutorials for new people interested in cyber crime. This escalation also means that the responsibility for online security is shifting to the personal side instead of solely the vendor.
Below are a few examples of the many ways cyber criminals are making money online from your accounts and information. Whether they are taking a website down to stop trade, extorting hospitals with sensitive patient information, auctioning hacking tools and guides for new criminals or just use of your netflix subscription, there is a market for it and it is thriving.
Bank details
Selling credit card numbers has been a classic source of revenue for cyber criminals. Although the market is starting to lean towards more specific details like medical records for social engineering and fraud purposes, credit card information is still a strong source of revenue. As can be seen below from a 2016 McAfee report, full card and personal details for a little as $40.
“Everything is available. We see bank-to-bank transfers offered for sale, and the availability of banking login credentials.”
Bank credentials for a specific account to drain funds has a higher value which runs as a percentage of the account balance. Usually around 1% – 5% of the available balance.
DDoS Rental Services
A DDoS attack will overload a victims website causing it to crash and prevent access until the attack stops. A frozen website can cause an instant halt to sales and have ongoing reputational damage. In 2016, 84% of Australian small and medium businesses are online with that percentage expected to increase in 2017.
The average cost to the victim of a DDoS attack is around $500USD per minute, the mean cost to the attacker is only $66 per attack. The cost to launch a DDoS attack is so low that the barrier to entry for attackers is practically nil – and that means that any organization can potentially be the target of a DDoS attack. What is a DDoS attack?
Russian DDoS advertisement
Exploit kits
Exploit kits are designed to be a ready to launch hacking tool, with many different variations available online for the budding cyber criminal to purchase and start causing mischief. One case of a student in Virginia, USA is facing a 10 years prison sentence after creating a key logger tool which records keystrokes and ultimately account information on the victim’s system. The student offered the nefarious tool for sale at $35 USD and sold to around 3,000 people who, in turn, infected over 16,000 victims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Using those numbers, his personal incentive for the key logger tool was approximately $105,000 USD which is certainly an attractive figure for any would-be cyber criminal.
Ransomware is malicious software which once it has infected a system the software will encrypt important files rendering the operations frozen until the victim pays a ransom usually demanded in bitcoin. Multiple ransomware kits have been found for rent in online marketplaces for as little as $1,000USD a month or $100USD for 48 hours.
Insure your business against cyber crime.
Online rewards programs
Online rewards programs such as account information for airline points have also been found for sale on cyber crime marketplaces. According to the report 300,000 airline points for as low as $90USD which is very concerning after the recent reveal that 90% of airline booking systems are insecure.
“Flight bookings worldwide are managed by the so-called Global Distributed Systems (GDS) that connect travel agencies, online booking websites, airlines and passengers. Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport, the three largest GDS networks, administer more than 90 percent of the bookings as well as numerous hotel, car, and other travel reservations, according to Security Research Labs (SR Labs), a Berlin-based hacking research collective.”
Compromised organisation & infrastructure access
Other types of data for sale include access to systems within organizations’ trusted networks. The types of entry vary, from very simple direct access (such as login credentials) to those that require a degree of technical competence to carry out (such as vulnerabilities). We can see the availability of vulnerabilities that allow potential buyers access to bank and airline systems located in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
A recent report by cyber crime expert Idan Aharoni suggests that the types of systems criminals sell access to now include critical infrastructure systems. In his article “SCADA Systems Offered for Sale in the Underground Economy,” Aharoni included one example in which a seller provided a screenshot that appears to be a French hydroelectric generator as evidence that the seller had access.
Stolen enterprise data is also for sale, we have seen sellers offering data stolen from a university.
Medical Records
One of the fastest growing areas of data theft is the medical industry. Client records have been shown to be extremely valuable in the black market community for a number of reasons. One reason is the level of detail which medical records hold. Most medical records hold sensitive information which financial institutions are not privy to for example full name, age, family history, government ID numbers and other details used for social engineering.
Another reason medical records have increased in value is their extortion value to the holding hospital or medical practitioner. “A breach happens at one of these companies. The hackers go direct to that company and say, ‘I have your data.’ The cost of keeping this a secret is X dollars and the companies make the problems go away that way,” said Greg Virgin, CEO of the security firm RedJack.
Online Subscription Services
Netflix, HBO, Spotify, etc are just a few of the online subscription services for digital content that are available to purchase for a low as $1 USD. High demand for these accounts can be seen from the widespread listings in the marketplace despite their seemingly low value.
video streaming services are in high demand. Even premium professional sports streaming services can be purchased for $15. We also found other online accounts being sold, including lifetime subscriptions to premium pornography accounts, as well as free referral links to the dark web market Agora.
Insure your business against cyber crime.
It is unclear how 2017 will unfold with reports already saying 123456 is still the world’s most popular password but if that is any indicator of the state of personal security, 2017 is going to be a very lucrative year for cyber criminals.
“Employees still remain the most cited source of compromise”
With each new report the cyber security expert consensus remains the same regarding internal culture to self mitigate. The below is an excerpt from the latest Australia Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) Cyber Resilience Assessment Report: ASX Group and Chi-X Australia Pty Ltd.
“There is clear recognition that effective cyber resilience requires a strong ‘cultural’ focus driven by the board and reflected in organisation-wide programs for staff awareness, education and random testing, including of third parties.”
CERT Australia (the CERT) is the national computer emergency response team and are the point of contact in Government for cyber security issues affecting major Australian businesses. The CERT is part of the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, with offices in Canberra and Brisbane.
At least 85% of the targeted cyber intrusions that the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) responds to could be prevented by following the Top 4 mitigation strategies listed in our Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Cyber Intrusions.
“This Cyber Security Strategy sets out my Government’s philosophy and program for meeting the dual challenges of the digital age—advancing and protecting our interests online.” Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP
CREST Australia New Zealand Ltd, a not for profit company, runs CREST Australia New Zealand on behalf of member companies and provides assessment, accreditation, certification, education and training in cyber and information security for individuals and corporate entities and promotes the provision of high quality, best practice information security services according to its company constitution.
MailGuard is one of Australia’s leading technological innovators and the world’s foremost cloud web and email security service, providing complete protection against web and email security threats like malware, ransomware, spyware, phishing, spear phishing, viruses, spam and similar malicious scams in 27 countries around the world.
“This comprehensive report is a must-have reference for C-suite executives, senior managers and anyone new to the information security management space.”
CSO provides news, analysis and research on a broad range of security and risk management topics. Areas of focus include information security, physical security, business continuity, identity and access management, loss prevention and more.
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Its programs now reach more than 165,000 security professionals around the world. SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training and security certification in the world.
“Everything you want to know about cyber security and are too tired to search for.” Whatever you may be interested in – from DEF CON to SANS – you will find on this page.
Conclusion
As the emphasis on employee exploitation tactics continues, the more important it is to educate all staff. Cyber Insurance Australia will continue to update this cyber security resource list as more valuable resources are discovered. For any additions please comment or message.
Cyber attack results show over 2.2 billion records stolen
It’s time to reflect on some of the most audacious, embarrassing and dangerous hacks, leaks and data breaches from the past year. 2016 is finished but and at this point there have been more than 2.2 billion records stolen in the past 12 months with a large number coming from historical breaches.
Yahoo – Yahoo has advised they have had at least an incredible 500 million accounts compromised. The intrusion actually happened in 2014 but was only picked up by the company in August of 2016 following an investigation into a separate breach. The August cyber attack turned out to be false but brought to light the extent of the 2014 intrusion. While Yahoo says the information taken was low-value data it did include security questions and answers which would make users vulnerable if used across multiple sites.
Linux Mint backdoor– The Linux operating system still remains one of the most popular Linux releases with approximately 6 million users despite a recent backdoor being announced. The malicious code was inserted into the legitimate version listed on the official Linux Mint forums. Hundreds of users downloaded the malicious build before detection.
“The hacked ISOs are hosted on 5.104.175.212 and the backdoor connects to absentvodka.com. Both lead to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the name of 3 people over there. We don’t know their roles in this, but if we ask for an investigation, this is where it will start.” said the official Mint statement.
SWIFT – SWIFT or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a global organisation that operates a trusted and closed computer network for communication between member banks around the world. With 11,000 members and around 25 million financial messages sent per day SWIFT is a prime target for a cyber attack. On February 4, 2016 unknown hackers used Bangladeshi Bank employee SWIFT credentials to send approx $850 million to numerous accounts in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia.
When Bank employees found the error $81 million had already been credited to multiple accounts—reportedly belonging to casinos in the Philippines—and all but $68,000 of it was withdrawn on February 5 and 9 before further withdrawals were halted. The hackers might have stolen much more if not for a typo in one of the money transfer requests that caught the eye of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
TRUMP – The president elect’s TRUMP hotel chain has been the victim of two cyber attacks since 2015 with the most recent in April 2016. According to some sources the organisation was using unpatched and insecure systems which were more than 10 years old. The April findings were only scratching the surface but it is likely the TRUMP organisation has been compromised much further.
Then, Trump’s presidential campaign leaked the resumes of prospective interns, including their names, addresses, and in some cases sensitive employment details. Let’s hope his cybersecurity strategy is better when he’s in office.
LinkedIn – The global professional networking company was first compromised in 2012. As with the same case as Yahoo, the scale of the historical 2012 breach was only understood this year when the number of stolen accounts exploded to almost 117 million. One reporter noted that the majority of stolen accounts had passwords found in the annual worst passwords list from SplashData.
Here’s how to check if your accounts have been compromised in a cyber attack, haveibeenpwned.com
Tumblr – It comes as no surprise that the Yahoo owned micro blogging and social networking website, Tumblr suffered a similar breach to their parent company in 2013 before the acquisition. Tumblr staff announced that it had been the victim of a security breach but refused to give details until investigative journalists discovered the stolen database had more than 65 million accounts.
MySpace – Formally the world’s largest social network, Myspace suffered their largest known exploit and brought them back into the headlines for the wrong reasons. The breach occurred on June 11th, 2013 but once again was only fully recognised earlier this year after further investigation.
“Each record may contain an email address, a username, one password and in some cases a second password.The methods MySpace used for storing passwords are not what internet standards propose and is very weak encryption or some would say it’s not encryption at all but it gets worse. We noticed that very few passwords were over 10 characters in length (in the thousands) and nearly none contained an upper case character which makes it much easier for people to decrypt.” said leaked data analysts at leakedsource.com.
US Political Attacks – The media had a field day surrounding the 2016 US election accusations from the White House that the Kremlin had committed politically motivated hacks on presidential candidates. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper stated that “based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized” regarding the hacks. Russia has repeatedly denied the hacking allegations.
VK – The largest European online social networking service, based in Russia was the victim of 3 separate hacks in as many months. According to reports, the attack occurred in 2012 or 2013 and continues the historical hack trend which has dominated this list. An estimated 171 million accounts from VK.com and their parent company Mail.ru’s forums.
The hacker is now reported to be selling a portion of the database. 100 million accounts, which turns out to be a little over 17 gigabytes in size have been found on a dark web marketplace for 1 bitcoin.
NSA – The infamous National Security Agency which is an intelligence organization of the US government, responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes has had their internal tools stolen and auctioned off by The Shadow Brokers.
The hacking tools which could break through Fortinet and Cisco firewalls was seen listed for auction through known exploit sites. With the wide range of Snowden Leaked files sources are able to confirm that the exploit tools belonged to the US government.
At the time of writing the auction has failed however, The Shadow Brokers have now appeared to have put up the NSA’s hacking tools and exploits for direct sale on an underground website.
NSA 2nd breach – To add to the public woes the NSA has been dealing with over the past three years,Harold Martin, former staffer stole approximately 50 terabytes of data from the the United States’ top security organisation. The majority of the information taken was considered classified and actually greatly eclipsed the previous breach by Edward Snowden.
Martin has been initially charged with mishandling information which has now been upgraded to espionage. While a lot of information was classified there is a large amount which is of greater public interest for which Martin has done a great service. Martin reportedly simply walked out the front door with the data over the course of his 20 year employment. This is case study number 1 for future employee breaches.
Oracle Point-of-Sale Terminals – Point of sale machines have become common place globally to assist all business’s process and retain important customer details. Micros, one of the largest terminal manufactures which was acquired by Oracle in 2014 for $5.3 billion reported that “hundreds of systems” at the company had been compromised.
The compromised systems had malware installed which was designed to remotely access usernames and passwords from systems located in retail outlets internationally.
Weebly – The web development and design giant put more than 43 million customers at risk earlier this year thanks to their own terrible internal security.
Weebly has openly admitted in a statement that the security gap and cyber attack was their own fault and they are taking appropriate measures for future security. The hacker reportedly took records which included usernames, passwords, IP addresses and email addresses.
AdultFriendFinder – The 2015 Ashley Madison breach which involved approx 37 million accounts has been made to look like a drop in the ocean after the 2016 AFF breach.
More than 400 million users were exposed in a targeted attack on the AdultFriendFinder network. The adult hook-up website has reportedly compromised an absolutely staggering 20 years of data from their initial set up in 1996. AdultFriendFinder describes itself as “one of the world’s largest sex hook-up” websites, with more than 40 million active users and a handful of similar adult oriented sites which were also compromised. In the cyber attack stolen data included usernames, browser information, date of the users last visit, purchasing patterns and more.
Insure your business against cyber crime.
Conclusion
Many more breaches have occurred which did not make the above list and with the enormity of the historical breaches now being brought to public attention it looks like 2017 is set for bigger and scarier reports to surface.
“I’m afraid we no longer live in a world where you can prevent breaches taking place, instead it is about how you manage them and what measures you have in place to protect your business and importantly, your customers. As recent events have shown, hard-earned reputations can be lost in a flash if you do not have the correct plans in place.” Inga Beale, Lloyd’s Chief Executive.
Each year the government departments release their collective data for an eye opening report about national, commercial and private online security.
Between July 2015 and June 2016, CERT Australia responded to 14,804 cyber security incidents affecting Australian businesses, 418 of which involved systems of national interest (SNI) and critical infrastructure (CI). The incidents affecting SNI and CI are broken down by sector below.
As CERT Australia relies on the voluntary self-reporting of information security incidents from private, commercial and government sources throughout Australia and internationally, CERT is unfortunately not able to get a complete view of all incidents. A large number of businesses which have been victims of a breach have paid a bitcoin ransom or fixed their system without notifying CERT or their cyber insurance provider.
According to CERT, the energy and communications sectors had the highest number of compromised systems. The banking and financial services and communications sectors had the highest number or DDoS attacks while the highest number of malicious emails was received by the energy and mining sectors.
Insure your business against cyber crime.
Trending exploitation techniques
Spear Phishing – emails containing a malicious link or file attachment with methods used becoming more convincing and difficult to spot. As such, spear phishing emails continue to be a common exploitation technique used in the compromise of Australian industry networks.
Ransomware – Ransomware encrypts the files on a computer (including network fileshares and attached external storage devices) then directs the victim to a webpage with instructions on how to pay a ransom in bitcoin to unlock the files. The ransom has typically ranged from $500 – $3000 in bitcoins.
Web-seeding techniques – By compromising web sites frequently visited by targets, adversaries are able to exploit targets without overt communication, such as spear phishing emails. Strategic web compromises have proven effective for thematic campaigns, such as targeting foreign policy and defence organisations via the compromise of think tanks and media organisations, but pose an equal threat to all users.
Malicious advertising – “Malvertising” allows an adversary to target a specific audience by exploiting online advertisement networks used by popular websites that visitors trust. Typically, either malicious code is inserted into an ad being presented to users in the course of their normal browsing or a benign ad is used to redirect the user to somewhere that will download malicious code automatically.
Microsoft office macros– Adversaries are increasingly using Microsoft Office macros – small programs executed by Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint – to circumvent security controls that prevent users from running untrusted applications. Microsoft Office macros can contain malicious code resulting in a targeted cyber intrusion yielding unauthorised access to sensitive information.
DDoS extortion– A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. DDoS extortion occurs when a cyber adversary threatens to launch DDoS activities against an organisation unless a fee is paid.
Secondary Targeting – There has been an increase in the detection of cyber adversaries attempting to gain access to enabling targets – targets of seemingly limited value but which share a trust relationship with a higher value target organisation. It is imperative that organisations understand that they might be targeted solely based on their connections with other organisations – the real target of these adversaries.
Targeted Disclosures – While the theft and targeted disclosures of sensitive information is not a new threat, the employment of the tactic in such a brazen manner against high profile entities has almost certainly lowered the threshold of adversaries seeking to conduct such acts.
Credential Harvesting Campaigns – emails direct the user to access a document via Google Drive, and by clicking on a “View Document” link, the user is then directed to a webpage where credentials are requested and thereby harvested by the adversary. Emails are then sent from the compromised user’s account to contacts contained in the compromised user’s address book, meaning the malicious emails will appear to be coming from legitimate and trusted sources.
What does a typical cyber security compromise look like?
Intial foothold
The attacker sends a spear phishing email with a malicious link to their target which when opened will execute malware creating an entry into the network.
Network Reconnaissance
After access has been granted the attacker will continually monitor and study the network, search for domain administration credentials and possibly propagate through other linked networks. As an example, an adversary will regularly access the network to gain updated user credentials, thus avoiding losing access because of password changes.
Establish Presence
Once in the network, adversaries will attempt to obtain legitimate user credentials with the goal of gaining legitimate remote administrative access. After legitimate credentials are obtained, the adversary will transition from malware dependant tradecraft to the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), or other corporate remote-access solutions combined with software native to the organisation.
Ensure Persistence
Adversaries strive to install malware or a web shell to ensure ongoing access should their legitimate accesses cease to function. Malware is typically configured with a limited “beacon rate” to minimise network traffic and evade network defenders. However, web shells are increasingly being used as they generate zero network traffic and are difficult to detect unless the adversary is actively interacting with them.
Execute Intent
Once persistent access is gained, the adversary will execute their intent. This intent could be anything from data exfiltration to enabling lateral movement to the real targeted organisation, exploiting circle of trust relationships between the organisations.
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Further Resources
Mitigation of Targeted Cyber Security Intrusions
The mitigation strategies tailor and provide additional controls that make the mitigation strategies relevant to current and emerging issues such as ransomware and other destructive malware, malicious insiders, and industrial control systems.More information can be found at http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/mitigationstrategies.htm
The Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM)
The Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) assists in the protection of official government information that is processed, stored or communicated by Australian government systems, and is available at http://www.asd.gov.au/infosec/ism/index.htm
CERT Australia (Computer Emergency Response Team)
CERT Australia’s public website contains useful information for Australian businesses in relation to mitigating cyber security incidents and security issues affecting major Australian businesses. More information can be found at: https://www.cert.gov.au/
The Australian federal government has successfully appointed Craig Davies as CEO for the new not-for-profit company Australian Cyber Security Growth Network Ltd in December 2016.
For the past 3 years Craig was previously the head of security for Australian enterprise software giant Atlassian. Mr Davies has over 25 years experience in the industry and has been a long time advisor for start-ups on security.
Insure your business against cyber crime.
Greg hunt, minister for innovation has stated “[The centre] will bring together industry, researchers and governments to create a national enterprise that will provide the foundation for the development of next generation products and services needed to live and work securely in our increasingly connected world,”
The new centre which was announced earlier this year as part of the national innovation and science agenda will cost $32 million and be positioned next to Data 61’s national cyber security centre in the Docklands.
Mr davies will be joined by Data61’s Adrian Turner and Doug Elix as the centre’s joint chairs.
In a joint study with Cambridge University, the Lloyd’s insurance giant has ranked Sydney 12th out of 301 global cities in terms cyber attack exposure with $4.86 billion ($6.36 billion) of GDP at risk for 2015 – 2025.
In its City Risk Index 2015-2025, Lloyd’s also ranked other Australian cities in the study, Melbourne’s economic risk was measured at $US3.87 billion ($5.06 billion), followed by Canberra at $US2.8 billion ($3.66 billion).
Brisbane’s risk was $US2.05 billion ($2.68 billion), Perth’s $US1.83 billion ($2.39 billion) and Adelaide’s $US1.01 billion ($1.32 billion).
Globally, Lloyd’s warns that $294 billion is at risk as attempted and successful cyber attacks become more prevalent.
“We are living in a world where people carry a globally connected supercomputer in their pocket and almost every important work document is stored in the cloud, on servers or online. The result is an explosion in the potential for cyber risk.” Lloyd’s Global CEO Inga Beale stated during a recent visit to Sydney.
“The latest series of high-profile data breaches is just the beginning,” she said. “With the emergence of the Internet of Things, the potential for cyber risk is enormous.”
Lloyd’s has seen the amount of Cyber Insurance coverage increase 168-fold in the past two decades in Australia with more businesses seeking to protect themselves.
In the US 25% of businesses now have cyber insurance. Europe should catch up after the EU introduces its General Data Protection Regulation in 2018.
The regulation, with implications for Australian business holding European customer data, requires disclosure of breaches to national data protection authorities and potentially affected individuals.