By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman
In mid-May, the Russian government (quietly) published a report revealing that foreign hackers had successfully compromised the Russian Government’s cyber systems. The report suggests that sophisticated hackers were pursuing the interests of a foreign state or that they were backed by a particular state but makes no statement as to who may have been behind it.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and James Gray
It seems that Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) is the flavour of the month. Recently, we blogged about the adoption of FRT in the SkyCity Adelaide Casino to identify barred gamblers, which comes following the commencement of Perth’s 12 month trial of FRT conducted in co-operation with law enforcement agencies. However, on an international stage, organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have begun testing of FRT access systems to boost security, according to a Report by the Australian Financial Review.
Read MoreBy Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a notice of intent to levy a £500,000 fine against Facebook for breaches of the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998. The ICO found that Facebook failed to protect its users’ data and be transparent about how that data was being harvested. This failure, ICO said, did not enable users to understand how and why they may be targeted by a political party or campaign.
The fine comes as part of a larger investigation by ICO into misuse of data in political campaigns, and responds to the highly publicised allegations that Cambridge Analytica used data obtained from Facebook to target voters in the 2016 US presidential election.
By Rob Pulham, Warwick Andersen and Sarah Goegan
Beware! Your favourite apps may be putting your phone and data at risk. Reports from Allot and BitSight have examined rising threats to the security of our mobile devices.
By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
You would think government agencies would have a keen focus on cybersecurity risks, but apparently not! A report by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has found that nearly three-quarters of Federal agencies reviewed have either “at risk” or “high risk” cybersecurity arrangements. 71 of 96 agencies assessed were either missing, had insufficiently deployed or had significant gaps in their fundamental cybersecurity policies, processes or tools.
By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Sarah Goegan
Online genealogy platform MyHeritage suffered a major data breach in which email addresses and hashed passwords of over 92 million users were leaked. The data breach occurred in October 2017, but was not discovered until 4 June 2018.
MyHeritage became aware of the breach after a security researcher found a file named “myheritage” on a private server. The file contained all the email addresses of MyHeritage users who signed up through to 26 October 2017, and their hashed passwords.
By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
North Korean cyberattack activity appears to have ramped up ahead of the highly anticipated US-North Korea summit, which is expected to take place on 12 June 2018.
North Korean hackers known as Group 123 have been identified as the party responsible for new malware activity targeting users in South Korea.
By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
No it’s not Chinese or Russian hackers trying to influence elections. A candidate in the Ontario province elections in Canada has resigned following allegations he may have stolen data from his former employer to further his party’s campaign.
By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan
This week, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its Cybersecurity Strategy. The five “pillar” strategy will be executed by the DHS over the next five years, and aims to improve national cybersecurity risk management.
By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd
Recent news reports have revealed that Facebook has been hit with another data scandal.
The anonymised data of approximately 3 million Facebook users has reportedly been published on a poorly protected website. This data was originally collected via a Facebook quiz app called “myPersonality”. The myPersonality app was developed as part of the “myPersonality project” run by academics at the University of Cambridge’s The Psychometrics Centre.
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