data breach – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

18 March 2018

Weekly Wrap 407: New projects abound, plus a rabbit

This is really another Fortnightly Wrap, covering Monday 5 to Sunday 18 March 2018. I’ve been busy, and I’ll be busy for the next couple of weeks.

Articles

Government’s dumb data disasters demonstrate decaying diligence, ZDNet Australia, 12 March 2018.
I filed a complaint with the City of Sydney over a poorly-handled rabbit incident at Circular Quay library I’ve been advised that there will be “an internal investigation into this matter”.

I’ve also written a piece for ZDNet which will appear on Monday.

Podcasts

None, but see below.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday 6 March, I spoke about medical device security on ABC Adelaide. I probably won’t be posting a recording of that one.

Corporate Largesse

On Tuesday 13 March, I had lunch with people from Cylance and their PR firm at The Morrison Bar & Oyster Room in Sydney. Lovely.

The Week Ahead

I’m travelling to a few cities to present at a corporate event, in Melbourne on Tue 20 Mar, Brisbane on Wed 21, Adelaide on Thu 22 (and staying there through the weekend). In between all that, I’m finishing the third batch of content for DirectorTech, and starting a new editorial project which I’ll tell you about soon.

On Saturday I’m recording The 9pm Hometown Forum at an Adelaide pub still to be chosen.

I’ll kinda stressed about whether I’ll be able to achieve all of this.

On Sunday I’ll have a lazy day in my hometown.

Further Ahead

The following Monday 26 March, I’m recording another interview in Adelaide, then doing a radio spot on ABC Adelaide that afternoon. On Tuesday, I fly back to Sydney for the final corporate gig, then back to the Blue Mountains. I’ll worry about the rest of the week after that.

Looking way further ahead:

Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Conference, Canberra, 10â€“12 April.
Australian Cyber Conference, formerly the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) National Conference, Melbourne, 9â€“11 October.

[Photo: Waiting for the train at Kings Cross. A passenger waits on the platform at Sydneyâ€™s King Cross station as a train arrives on 16 March 2018.]

21 May 2017

Weekly Wrap 364: Cruising through May, striking few rocks

It’s another multi-week Weekly Wrap, covering the three weeks from Monday 1 to Sunday 21 May 2017. The throat infection is finally gone — touch wood — but the sleep patterns are still rubbish, and the care factor low.

I don’t want to whinge any more, through, so here are the things.

Articles

Cyber cooperation leads to cybersecurity, so why won’t Australia cyber do it?, ZDNet Australia, 3 May 2017.
Lawyers and insurers set for data breach payday, ZDNet Australia, 10 May 2017.
Hey cyber techbros, smugly yelling ‘patch and back-up’ won’t fix ransomware, ZDNet Australia, 15 May 2017. This was my response to the WannaCry worm outbreak a few days previously, and I got a bunch of hate mail, but also a bunch of compliments. Go figure.

Podcasts

None, but see below for my podcast plans.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday 2 May, I spoke very briefly about the attempted extortion of Netflix by a hacker group on Ten Network’s The Project. It was originally planned to be a longer package followed by a studio guest, but we were cut back to make room for a breaking political story. I forgot to grab a copy of the video, alas.
Some of my comments on WannaCry were quoted in an article at Popular Science, 5 things we learned from WanaCryptor, the biggest ransomware attack in internet history, as well as some other places.
Some of my tweets about Twitter’s privacy changes were quoted at Breitbart, of all places, in Twitter Introduces 'Creepy' New Privacy Settings, Auto Location Tracking.
Some of my tweets on the death of Mark Colvin were quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC journalist Mark Colvin dead at 65.

I’ve just finished reading Mark Colvin’s book, Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son, and it’s wonderful. If you’re in Australia, it’s currently AUD 8.60 on Kindle.

Corporate Largesse

On Wednesday 3 May, I covered Cyber Security — the Leadership Imperative 2017, and a lovely breakfast was served. It also led to the first two stories listed above.

The Week Ahead

I’ve dropped my plans to cover the AusCERT Information Security Conference on the Gold Coast later this coming week, in part because I’ve got plenty of other things to do.

This week I plan to do a solid amount of work on the SEKRIT editorial project; write a thing or two for ZDNet, including a 1500-word feature; plus, I guess, a bunch of other things. But I won’t assign specific tasks to specific days, because that tends to jinx things, especially with my sleep patterns still being so dodgy.

Further Ahead

The next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast will be recorded and streamed live on Tuesday 30 May from stilgherrian.com/edict/live/, starting at 2100 AEST. You still have time to support this podcast with a one-off contribution.

(For those of you who’ve been asking about ongoing contributions, yes, I still intend to set up a better system for that. That won’t be finalised for a while, though, so one-off contributions are very welcome.)

Beyond that, I’m covering 5th International Conference on Cybercrime and Computer Forensics (ICCCF) on the Gold Coast from 16 to 18 July, I hope; and the national conference of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) in Sydney on 10 to 12 October.

If there’s anything I should add in there, please let me know.

[Photo: Circles and Spikes. The side of the cruise liner Carnival Spirit docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, Sydney, on 17 May 2017.]

02 April 201706 April 2017

Weekly Wraps 350 to 357: Gosh is that the time?

This Weekly Wrap is actually eight Weekly Wraps in one, covering Monday 6 February to Sunday 2 April 2017, numbers 350 to 357. Eight times the value!

Of these four weeks, I’ve spent roughly a week each in San Francisco, Ho Chi Minh City, and Canberra. I also visited a Cold War relic near San Francisco, namely Nike Missile Site SF-88L at Fort Barry. Other stuff happened too.

There’s so much in this Eight-Week Wrap, the bulk of it is over the fold. I won’t be able to list all the highlights, but I will mention two of the lowlights. I caught a conference plague, which slowed me down a bit. And my stress and anxiety levels, which had not been declining, went through the roof. And they’re still there.

This health issue is being addressed, so no sympathy is needed. (Instead, perhaps send me a tip to help with the revenue shortfall, especially with the low-reveue holiday periods of Easter and Anzac Day coming up.) But it does mean that my alleged plans for the next few weeks should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt than usual.

Continue reading “Weekly Wraps 350 to 357: Gosh is that the time?”

17 December 2016

Talking the Yahoo data breach on ABC The World Today

ABC logo “The internet company Yahoo has revealed it has been hacked again, this time losing a billion user accounts,” began ABC Radio’s The World Today report on Thursday.

Guess which muppet was interviewed by journalist Will Ockenden? Yeah, me.

Here’s the full four-minute story.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.8MB)

25 September 2016

Talking the Yahoo data breach on ABC Radio National Drive

ABC Sydney TARDIS 1 ABC logo Yahoo was the victim of the biggest data breach in history, at least so far, so it was inevitable that I ended up talking about it in the media.

This is my conversation with Jonathan Green on ABC Radio National Drive on Friday night.

Yahoo has confirmed the theft of user data including e mail addresses, birth dates, encrypted passwords and security questions. It took the internet giant two years to find out about the massive data breach. Stilgherrian is a Yahoo user and avid writer and commentator on the topic of cyber security and privacy. He talks to RN Drive about the incident.

And here’s what it sounded like.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:13 — 4.8MB)

[Photo: The view in ABC Sydney TARDIS 1, photographed in April 2016.]

04 September 201611 September 2016

Weekly Wrap 327: Spring is far more painful than planned

My week of Monday 29 August to Sunday 4 September 2016 was full of pain. I didn’t realise how seriously I’d been injured last weekend. Somehow, however, there’s plenty of things to report.

The injury I mentioned last week turned out to be a severe contusion — that’s bruising — of the ribs. It was just short of a fracture, but oddly enough the bruising is usually more painful, and that pain will be with me for several weeks. It’s strong painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and rest for me.

I strongly recommend never getting severe rib contusions.

All last week’s planned events were cancelled. It’s a good thing, therefore, that things emerged from the pipeline.

Articles

Four Corners points to critical gap in our cybersecurity, Crikey, 30 August 2016.
Why Dropbox’s data breach response is still wrong, ZDNet Australia, 31 August 2016.

Media Appearances

The highlight of my week was the start of series two of ABC TV’s award-winning drama series The Code, because I was the technology consultant for this series. That meant I was part of the scripting process, something I’ll write about another time. The six-part series is currently screening on ABC1 on Thursday nights at 2030, and is on ABC iView.
Also on Thursday, ZDNet posted two short videos in their Security TV series, The impending cybersecurity disaster of industrial control systems and The Internet of Insecure Things, and why we’re still in denial. They’re part of a feature on Cyberwar and the Future of Cybersecurity.

Podcasts

None, but next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast will be recorded and streamed live on Tuesday 6 September at 2100 AEST.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

Monday is a relatively quiet day. I’m being interviewed about The Code at 1430, but apart from that it’s production planning and administrivia, I think.

On Tuesday, it’s an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast.

Past that, well, it depends on the pain levels and the mood. This much pain doesn’t exactly cheer one up. But I’d like to get down to Sydney for at least one day. Stay tuned.

Further Ahead

I’m going to the Palo Alto Networks Cyber Security Summit in Sydney on 22 September, the AISA National Conference in Sydney on 18-20 October, the Ruxcon Security Conference in Melbourne on 22-23 October, and an event in Melbourne I can’t tell you about yet on 17 November.

[Photo: Almond Blossom at Bunjaree Cottages, Day Four, one in a series of daily photos taken of an almond tree at Bunjaree Cottages near Wentworth Falls, 100km west of Sydney — although the images are of different parts of the tree. This one was taken on 2 September 2016.]