The Federal Government of Australia is reacting to a cyber assault that threatens Australian
governments and firms across a wide range of industries.
On Friday 19 June, Prime Minister Scott Morrison reported that a “sophisticated state-based
cyber hacker” is targeting Australian organizations based on the advice received by the cyber
experts of the Federal Government Department.
Recently, Cybernetic Global Intelligence, one of Australia’s leading provider of cybersecurity
services analyzed the latest data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
to find out which nations around the globe have suffered the most cyber assaults(from May
2006 and June 2020), and classified it as a most significant one.
Major loopholes compromising cybersecurity
We are aware that solid cybersecurity is the sole foundation of each organization’s very
existence.
Hence, In light of the recent cyber threats, the cybersecurity veterans of Cybernetic Global
Intelligence has identified a couple of reasons behind the escalating cyber assaults.
When it comes to implementing cybersecurity all organizations need to look at the following and
start implementing this in their business immediately and cannot demand software testing.
1. When was the last time you tested your IT infrastructure against cyber-attacks? And
most critical being how secure is your organization?
2. Have you documented our organization’s cybersecurity policies and procedures?
3. Have you done risk assessments to identify internal and external threats?
4. How often do we conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration tests on our
network to determine weaknesses/vulnerabilities in the network?
5. Are you evaluating web applications? Do you know some of the biggest data breaches
result from compromised web applications?
6. Do you have log reports which confirm that your organization is not being attacked daily?
Even though every organization has a mechanism to detect the vulnerabilities, they are not
making efforts to staying updated fixing them as the top priority.
The expanding cyber defense loopholes are putting sensitive data at risk, exhilarating the
degree of damage caused by vindictive cyber attacks.
Prevention of Data Breach
If your organization wants to avoid the data breach from harming your business, the wise
decision will be to be implementing a data breach response plan. It will enhance your
organization’s cybersecurity process. Here are a few things that you should consider in every
data breach response plan of your organization.
Identify How Vulnerable Your Organization Is To An Attack
Vulnerability is always present in many ways and can change over time. A vulnerability
assessment is a methodical and logical process in which specific tools and techniques are used
to evaluate systems, technologies, and procedures to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities to
potential attacks, improve security and provide risk countermeasures. Every organization needs to conduct regular vulnerability assessments.
Threat Assessment
Where a vulnerability assessment identifies weaknesses and vulnerabilities, a threat
assessment is a method of assessing and anticipating:
● Who Could Attack?
● What / where could they attack?
● What are their goals?
● What kind of security is needed, and how much?
After the threat assessment, reconsider the preventive/detective controls that you should use for
data breaches and provide cybersecurity training to the staff members as well.
Protect Your Business from Security Breaches
These days, data breaches are more prevalent than ever. With the advancement of innovative
technologies and global data, the insights of cybercriminals and hackers seem to strengthen
more and more. So, every organization needs to be aware of all regulatory and non-regulatory cybersecurity compliances (ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, GDPR, APRA’s CPS 234, etc) and should act
compliant with these regulations as well.
But, are you aware of these new mandatory standards for information security? Is your organization
compliant with these regulations?
If you feel your organization fails to comply with these requirements, consider Investing more in
cybersecurity to avoid threats to protect your organization. With the help of competent
cybersecurity experts from cybernetic global intelligence, you can identify and anticipate much cybercrime in the future as well.