In June 2020, the Australian Government announced it was allocating $1.35 billion dollars of funding over the next 10 years to enhance Australia’s cyber security defences. This comes in the wake of recent numerous cyber attacks on Australian governments, political organisations and businesses.
Our leading cyber experts helped bring insight into the new reality of cyberwarfare in Australia, how startups can help, and how businesses can protect themselves against these sophisticated attacks. We welcomed Michelle Price, CEO at AustCyber, Hai Tran, CEO at Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (A3C), and Dr Vaughan Shanks, Co-Founder and CEO at Cydarm Technologies, with Chris Kirk, General Manager of Stone & Chalk Adelaide, moderating the discussion.
Historically, Australia has been safe during warfare due to our isolation from other countries, but in cyber terms, this distance is breached. Being a rich country with an abundance of resources and intellectual property, Australia is the perfect target for a cyber attack. Hai labels attacks on Australia as ‘two-fold:’ firstly, there is financial gain, and secondly, it’s a show of force.
This new cyberwarfare reality is the Cold War 2.0, says Vaughan. ‘It’s one of the tools available for statecraft in a scenario where no one wants to start a shooting war.’ But this ‘new reality’ is exaggerated by the Australian media, says Michelle, who reiterates that these kinds of cyber attacks have been going on for years. Instead of alarming ourselves, we should treat this new reality as a reminder that we need to tidy up our cyber defences.
We are all targets of cyber attacks because we form part of someone’s supply chain, explains Hai. Enemies always like to attack the weakest link because they’re the ones that aren’t generally prepared for a war. Think about the last time you received a phishing email with a clickable link from a reputable organisation you are involved in.
Cyber attribution - where you know who the malicious actor is in an attack - can be useful in some scenarios because it can act as a type of reconnaissance, explains Vaughan. It enables you to anticipate what will happen next and where you need to focus your attention.
However, Michelle emphasises that attributing attacks is not a one-size-fits-all approach because cyber is contextual. This is why Australian small business owners may be directly targeted more than government or big businesses. Therefore, it’s vital that all levels of business have cyber security measures in place, because ‘it’s small actions that can have big impacts,’ says Vaughan.
The main problem in cyber is scaling security down. Government agencies and banks have very structured, complex and expensive cyber control measures. This presents the opportunity for Australian startups to take all of that and scale it down for a small business that is operating on a restricted budget.
In the meantime, Hai suggests small business owners start implementing an affordable cyber plan that ‘prepares their business as if it’s going to be attacked tomorrow.’ They can do this by:
- Backing up their data regularly
- Buying cyber insurance (cheaper than other forms of insurance!)
- Enabling authentication, especially MFA (multi-factor authentication)
- Creating more awareness in their workplace around cyber attacks and cybersecurity, taking a top-down approach
Everyone on the panel agrees that cyber security in businesses should be as simple as common sense. If we all protect ourselves against these attacks, then the entire system is safeguarded.
This webinar is the first in our new Cyberwarfare series. A link to the full recording can be found here. Keep an eye out for the next episode!
You can watch the full discussion on our YouTube channel here.
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