Tag: infosec

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Talking cybersecurity on ABC Radio National Breakfast

Actually, this message about cybersecurity being a serious emerging theme for 2012 seems to be getting more mainstream coverage than I thought it would. I was part of a cybersecurity panel discussion that was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast this morning.

Also taking part were Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest in Detroit (I spoke with him about Anonymous and Stratfor on this week’s Patch Monday podcast), and Sean Kopelke, director of security and compliance solutions at Symantec Australia. The host was Jonathan Green, who is usually editor of ABC The Drum.

Over at the ABC’s website you can find the program audio and (perhaps, eventually) transcript. But I’m also including the audio below, just in case their systems fail.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:35 — 9.5MB)

This audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, of course. Even though we don’t get paid.

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Talking cyber threats on ABC NewsRadio

The Australian Federal Police were talking up the risk of “cyber threats” in the Fairfax news yesterday morning, so I ended up talking about it on ABC NewsRadio.

Now the AFP was bouncing off a report from McAfee, which from the title I assume is yet another of those “The internet is dangerous, m’kay?” fear pieces. 2012 Threats Predictions. I won’t bother linking, because all these reports from the major infosec vendors are much the same, jumbling together everything from minor vandalism to “cyberterrorism” — whatever the fuck that is — with little critical analysis.

But I suppose it is actually getting this stuff onto the agenda.

Slowly.

For six minutes.

At this point I reckon I should re-link to two of my pieces from the eCrime Symposium held in Canberra in November 2011. eCrime Symposium: Harden up, warns Aussie crime fighter and eCrime Symposium wrap: Satisfaction tinged with frustration.

The presenter was Cathy Bell (who seems to be missing from the station’s page of presenters), the producer Jared Reed.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.1MB)

The audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the audio was posted shortly after broadcast at the ABC NewsRadio website, I’m going to post it here anyway. It’s easier for me than trawling their automated daily audio archive.

This is being posted a full day after the actual radio appearance, even though the post was ready within an hour of the broadcast. Why? Because I didn’t want it on the website before I’d posted last week’s Weekly Wrap. Is that good editorial judgement? Or just a little bit too anally-retentive?

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Weekly Wrap 83: Ryde, radio and fraudulent moons

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, kicking off with a fraud. Weekly Wrap posts are meant to cover what I did in the Monday-to-Sunday week, but the Full Moon photograph was only taken last night.

Well, the weekend and the start of the new week was a bit more hectic than I expected, and this was the only new photo I’d taken that could be used here. Did you really want to see my photos of taxi receipts?

I’d also intended to write a more reflective introduction, cover what it was like living in the wilds of Ryde for the week. But this post is late enough as it is, so you’ll have to live without it.

Podcasts

None. However the Patch Monday podcast returned yesterday, and I think there might well be an episode of The 9pm Edict podcast some time this week too.

Articles

I know I listed my piece for ABC The Drum on the Anonymous hack of Stratfor in last week’s Weekly Wrap, but it was published in the week covered by this post, so here it is again.

Media Appearances

Corporate Largesse

None. Again. When will these PR companies actually start work for 2012?

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Full Moon over Erskineville, photographed last night from Erskineville Road, Sydney. This is the picture as-is using the “night landscape” program setting on the Nikon Coolpix S8100.]

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Talking Castro death hoax spam on ABC 774 Melbourne

Apparently the old “Fidel Castro is dead” hoax spam is doing the rounds again. I daresay the bad guys are targetting people during the holiday season when they’re less vigilant and don’t have as much work email to distract them from the spam.

I spoke about this with Matt Parkinson on ABC 774 Melbourne this morning. It’s the usual message. This stuff is common. Scammers act quickly. The aim is to infect your computer and steal your money. I continue to be surprised that most radio presenters seem completely oblivious to what goes on online.

There’s also the now-common ABC glitch of hedging the way they introduce my name. I’ll have to put a stop to that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.0MB)

The audio is ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it usually isn’t posted on their website and I don’t get paid for these spots, so here it is.

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Talking Stratfor hack on Perth radio 6PR

So there I was, having a quiet drink late on Friday night, chatting on Twitter with Crikey’s Bernard Keane and journalist Gabriella Lahti about the Stratfor hack, when who should poke his head over the parapet but Jason Jordan, who was about to present 6PR’s Nightline…

Long story short, less than half an hour later I’m live on air chatting about the whole thing, including who Anonymous are and what their motives might be, and what might happen next.

Thanks to technical difficulties my end I couldn’t record 6PR’s audio stream, and there wasn’t time to sort that out before we went live. So this audio was recorded my end, and that means I sound just fine on my quality microphone and the radio station is at the other end of the phone.

I’ve left in a bit of my conversation with the producer before and after so you can experience The Magic of Radio. Technically that’s a breach of the NSW Surveillance Devices Act 2007 because I didn’t seek permission first but, like, shut up.

Yes, it really was just two seconds from me getting ready to being live on air.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.5MB)

The audio is ©2011 Radio 6PR Perth Pty Ltd, but since they don’t archive these interviews I reckon it’s fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to 6PR and encourage you to listen. If you’re in Perth. Or if you want to stream it.

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Talking Stratfor hack on ABC TV’s “7.30”

I was interviewed for ABC TV’s current affairs program 7.30 yesterday about Anonymous’ hack of Stratfor. The story was Hack attack reveals Australians’ credit card details.

Interestingly, they chose to focus on the “liberation” of the credit card numbers and how it affected the Australian victims.

They didn’t use any of the material we recorded on who the various victims might be, what the still-to-come publication of some 2.7 million of Stratfor’s internal emails might reveal, and the effect that could have on both Stratfor and the individuals who’ve been feeding them information.

Indeed, this article by Barrett Brown makes it clear that those emails and other internal documents were the real target, not the credit card numbers. Anonymous is trying to give the impression that there’s some powerful stuff in there, but we’ll see.

I guess when you’ve only got six minutes and have to start with “Who is Anonymous?” and “Who is Stratfor?” then there’s not really enough time to get to “This is really a follow-up to Anonymous’ hack of HBGary Federal earlier in the year.”

Careful viewers will notice that reporter Sara Everingham described me as someone who “goes by the name Stilgherrian”, which is a bit of an oops but something that seemed to cause more distress to my Twitter followers than me.

Since some people have asked, I might as well tell you that the interview was shot in a spare office at the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters — rather different from the outdoor shot the last time I was on 7.30.

And despite the story being written and voiced by Sara Everingham, I was actually interviewed by Sarah Dingle. Ah, the Magic of Television!

The video in the story is Flash, so it won’t work on your iDevice. But there’s also an MP4 version of the video.