INFOSEC
Data Breaches: An Australasian perspective In the first in series of articles, David Withers APP considers the current state of data breaches from an Australasian perspective. Subsequent articles will cover the international perspective, how to handle a breach, and how to avoid them.
The recently published Jefferies Identity Theft Resource Centre End of Year Report 2018 looked at worldwide trends between 2017 and 2018. They noted that whilst there was a reduction of breaches by 23 percent, the number of records exposed rose 126 percent from approximately 197 million to 446 million. Hacking is still the most common event causing data loss.
David Withers is a Security Consultant with experience in large CCTV installations. He has also worked for over 20 years in Quality Assurance. As a Shadow Committee member of the ASIS NZ Chapter, David establishes and supports Auckland-based ASIS certification study groups.
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Whilst data breaches are well reported, other types of breach are equally as important. An incident could also result in violation of laws, people’s trust, or privacy. Ultimately, the fines and eroded trust often impact the organisation long after the event itself. This article will cover some recent examples. Challenges One of the big challenges for all security professionals in Australasia is getting buy-in for security investment.
With the phenomenon of security convergence becoming more widely recognised, the silos that have traditionally separated the Information, Physical, and Personnel security domains are fading away. Within the security multi-domain there are convergent risks and threats for which we require Governance, Compliance, Policies and Procedures, and security solutions. Organisations are now having to move to enterprise level wholistic security plans to avoid gaps in responses to these. Ironically, the relative safety of New Zealand and Australia doesn’t help. The 2019 Global Finance Magazine Safety Index has New Zealand as 10th safest in the world, with Australia close behind at 18th. The safety index considers the risk of natural disaster, crime, terrorism and war. A downside of this lower risk environment is that people settle on a laissez-faire attitude to security. An indifference to the risks and threats thus ultimately pervades all levels: Government, enterprise, SME, residential and personal security.
February / March 2020
