Debate: "Cyber security"
The Pandora’s box of the digital age

Is the world sliding dangerously towards cyber Armageddon? Let us hope not; but let us also apprehend the threat, and focus on what to do about it. One country after another has begun exploring options …

The internet of concerning things

The internet of things (IoT) is a network of everyday items, such as fridges, washing machines and even automobiles, that connect to the internet to share and exchange information. Kevin Ashton, who coined the term …

Cyber wrap

Getting a handle on the ‘cyber’ It’s been a big week in internet regulation, with unsavoury activities being plugged left and right. GoDaddy, a major domain registration service, evicted the Daily Stormer from its platform, …

Cyber wrap

Don’t say stupid things online It’s been a big week for advocates of online OPSEC. On Monday, a Google employee suffered a high-profile firing after he circulated a ‘manifesto’ railing against Google’s institutional ‘political bias’ …

Enhancing Australia’s cyber security posture

On 30 June 2017, the Turnbull Government made two key announcements to enhance Australia’s cyber security posture—in both war fighting and law enforcement. In the first of these, the government announced a new Information Warfare …

Cyber wrap

Two of the largest marketplaces on the dark web, AlphaBay and Hansa Market, have been taken down by a joint US and Europol operation. By Europol’s count, AlphaBay alone had over 200,000 users, 250,000 listings …

Cyber wrap

Prime Minister Turnbull announced a significant restructure of Australia’s national security community and Australia’s set to get a new Office of National Intelligence with a yet-to-be-named director. The Australian Signals Directorate will be elevated to …

Cyber wrap

Despite the continuing concerns over Russia’s adversarial role in cybersecurity, President Trump announced at the G20 that he and President Putin had discussed the formation of a joint US–Russian ‘impenetrable cyber security unit’ to ‘guard’ …

Cyber wrap

What’s old is new again this week, with ransomware from 2016, ‘Petya’, again taking the world by storm, infecting machines across 65 countries. Except that’s not really the case, as Janus Cybercrime Solutions, the original …

Cyber wrap

This week one of the largest ransomware incidents to date, ‘WannaCrypt’ or ‘WannaCry’, affected the operations of at least 300,000 machines worldwide, encrypting and locking victims out until a Bitcoin ransom equivalent to US$300 was …