Cyber Security: Cyber security summit outcomes | ADM November 2011

John Hilvert, with additional reporting by Gregor Ferguson | Sydney & Canberra

Anybody who depends on IT and computer networks to carry out their daily business is a potential victim of cyber attack by either cyber criminals or hostile governments. Cyber security initiatives operate at Government, industry and national security specific levels. Yet there is little agreement on how effective they have been to date.

Here in Australia several Government agencies are on the case. But finding reliable evidence or data of either cyber attack or a successful response can be tough because many such events occur in private, not in public, and are kept quiet for a variety of reasons.

Is the smartest counsel to accept our strategic institutions – government agencies, banks, online and point of sale funds transfer systems – are already compromised and act accordingly?

If so, this means ensuring critical data downloaded by rogue intruders should be encrypted in order to reduce its value and establishing round the clock teams to nail where and why intrusions occur before the trail goes cold.  

Subject: Cyber Security