critical infrastructure – Cyber Law Watch

Australia to be the most cyber secure nation?

Mar 05 2023

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Dadar Ahmadi-Pirshahid

Not content with merely implementing broad-scale privacy reform, the Government has announced a new position, the Coordinator for Cyber Security to be added to the Department of Home Affairs as a step towards their aim of “making Australia the most cyber secure nation by 2030“. This would seem to be a rather aspirational target!

The Coordinator will be supported by a National Office for Cyber Security, and their role will be to oversee steps to prevent future cyber security incidents and to help manage cyber incidents as they occur.

Ransomware attack on the world’s largest meatpacking company JBS

Jun 09 2021

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman

Last week, a ransomware attack on the world’s largest meatpacking company caused a temporary shut-down of its operations in Australia and North America. The attack infiltrated the company’s quality assurance systems and ultimately prevented normal production.

Another attack on critical infrastructure – New York’s subway hacked

Jun 08 2021

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman

In April, New York’s subway authority was hacked by a group of cybercriminals with suspected Chinese government connections. The authority is responsible for operating all of New York’s train and bus systems and the attack exposed vulnerabilities in the services used by millions every day.

Jul 24 2020

By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

The Australian Government is currently developing its next Cyber Security Strategy, which is scheduled for release in the coming months.

The Australian Government 2020 Cyber Security Strategy Industry Advisory Panel has released a report consisting of 60 recommendations to inform the 2020 Cyber Security Strategy. The Panel’s 60 recommendations are structured around five key pillars:

Mar 30 2020

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, and Max Evans

As the world grinds to a halt following the dispersion of COVID-19 and businesses around the globe experience a significant downturn, more and more businesses are turning towards their Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in order to mitigate the potential impacts of this worldwide emergency on business sustainability. However, a key aspect of BCP’s is that they encapsulate the full scale of collateral issues that may arise from such an emergency.

From a technology perspective, BCP’s need to consider access. This issue is twofold: being access to premises in which businesses operate in order to correct system defects and system outages, as well as access to external premises that provide technology services such as data storage or data security services.

Is nothing safe? New malware targets industrial control systems

Dec 19 2017

By Cameron Abbott and Harry Crawford

I’m sure I saw this in Die Hard 4 but “life imitates art”. A new type of malware has been discovered in a very rare field of operation for hackers: attacking industrial control systems. Cybersecurity firm FireEye has been tight-lipped in detailing the attack, but has indicated that it was against “a critical infrastructure organization” which inadvertently caused operations to shut down. The attack is also reminiscent of the infamous “Stuxnet” virus that was used against Iranian nuclear power plants in 2010. Read More

Tag:critical infrastructure

Australia to be the most cyber secure nation?

Ransomware attack on the world’s largest meatpacking company JBS

Another attack on critical infrastructure – New York’s subway hacked

Update: Australia’s 2020 Cyber Security Strategy

Forgotten Issues: What Business Continuity Planning in the COVID-19 Era Isn’t Contemplating

Is nothing safe? New malware targets industrial control systems