 is paid to the cyber attacker. According to Telstra, over 50% of Australian businesses targeted by a ransomware attack pay this sum. Attacks of this nature are pervasive: In 2019, Business News Australia reported that 91% of Australian and New Zealand SMEs suffered ransomware attacks between 2017 and 2019, with an average cost of $208,000 per attack.
Experts have already advised that ransomware remains a threat in 2020, and recommend that all businesses update and strengthen their security controls and run scans for malicious software.
Bitcoin users beware: With exciting new cryptocurrencies come new cyber threats. Cryptojacking, or the unauthorised use by a third party of business computers to mine cryptocurrency, remains a cyber security trend in 2020. Although the popularity of this particular type of cyber attack has declined somewhat since 2017 as aggressors shift their focus toward ransomware, businesses should still be vigilant.
Many cryptomining attacks are executed through phishing emails that then load scripts on user computers. To protect yourself and your business, educate your staff about the risk and provide training in how to recognise a potential phishing attack.
In today’s increasingly connected business landscape, it’s not uncommon for businesses to partner with a number of other organisations to deliver their service offering. From suppliers and logistics companies to warehouse operators and factories, each of these partners form a link within a supply chain. As these supply chains grow longer and more complex, supply chain attacks are, unsurprisingly, becoming more common.
Also known as ‘’secondary targeting’’, supply chain attack examples include high profile cases like the 2013 cyber attack on Target Corporation. In this case, cyber criminals accessed Target’s secure network by first breaching the company’s HVAC supplier. After compromising the supplier’s database, attackers were able to use their credentials to access Target’s database - and the credit card details of up to 40 million customers.
Phishing scams have been around since the earliest days of the internet, and continue to evolve at breakneck speeds. Business Insider Australia reports that phishing attacks remain a very real - and increasingly devastating - cyber threat to businesses in 2020.
In large part, the endurance of phishing attacks as a major cyber threat over the years is due to their versatility. Assailants using this type of cyber attack constantly adapt and refine their mode of operation, making attacks hard to predict and even harder to prevent. 2020 has already given rise to a number of novel phishing scams, including PayPal login scams that collect user credentials via a fraudulent login scheme. To protect themselves from this type of attack, businesses are advised to exercise constant vigilance and ensure their IT security software is up to date.
Since their emergence in the mid-2010s, business email compromise scams, or BEC scams, have wreaked havoc on companies around the world. In this type of cyber attack, assailants use the publicly available email addresses of executive financial staff to make fraudulent wire transfers on behalf of the company. Such transfers typically cannot be recovered, and can cost Australian businesses as much as $190 000.
The threat of business email compromise fraud is so great that INTERPOL, the paramount international crime prevention agency, has published guidelines on managing the risk. Their advice to companies follows cyber security best practice, and encourages the use of firewall and antivirus software and spam filters, while warning against opening attachments or links in emails from unknown senders.
While the cyber security threats faced by Australian companies are growing, they’re part and parcel of doing business in today's digital landscape. As such, owners of all businesses - no matter how big or small - should take their cyber security seriously and practice a policy of constant vigilance.
For peace of mind that your business is protected against evolving digital attacks, consider investing in a security solution like ESET Secure Business or ESET Threat Intelligence service. To learn more about these software solutions and which is right for you, get in touch with ESET today!I graduated last year and took me way too long to get a job (which I start tomorrow). I blamed it on the pandemic whenever anyone asked, but truth is my anxiety and depression was 70% the cause of it. I made my resume in a rare burst of high spirits and energy then left it alone never to be touched again. Then I applied to every single job that even remotely matched what I studied for and freaked out during the rare occasions where I get an interview. Meanwhile I have friends who had several job offers at once and get to choose where to go, or friends who change jobs really easily with almost no qualms. basically job hunting is hell for people like us but I wish you all the best!!!!!!!Perhaps traditional questions can’t reveal these structures’ histories because Kalkin’s new domestic design, Quik House, is anything but traditional. Fairly ordinary when first described—three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 2,000 square feet, with options such as a stainless steel kitchen outfit, mahogany doors, and custom-designed carpets—it is Quik House’s shell that surprises most: five recycled, steel shipping containers, stacked in building-block fashion (three on top, two on the bottom), give the house its shape. Add in the ability to purchase the home, available in either orange or natural “rust bloom,” from Kalkin’s Website and a less-than-five-month wait from order to move-in—all starting at $76,000 plus shipping—and the result is a truly innovative approach to domestic architecture.
The idea to do something with shipping containers came to Kalkin, a New Jersey resident, through frequent drives to New York City, where he saw sky-high stacks of the unused cargo containers in the shipyards he passed. Only after his personal reaction to the containers as appealing objects—he remarks that they have “interesting structural and spatial properties”—did he begin to consider their domestic possibilities, an outcome typical of his creative process. “You get moments where the logic you are using is much more personal and less full of intention—and not so much within the conscious part of the mind,” he says.
Despite aspiring to reach a global market, Kalkin has recently focused close to home, working with his own high school, the Pingry School in New Jersey. In cooperation with the school, he applied for and was awarded a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Trust Company to fund interdisciplinary research, development, and construction of a disaster-relief housing prototype on the Martinsville campus of the Pingry School.
In addition to helping modify and build the structures, students will explore the economic, agricultural, energy, and health issues that often accompany disasters, natural or otherwise, and necessitate emergency housing—including working with soil scientists and agronomists to suggest plants and vegetables best suited for particular geographic locales and climates to go with the housing.
Kalkin admits that he’s interested in doing something at Vassar as well— either a temporary structure or sculpture or working with students—since he considers it one of the only “institutions [he’s] ever had anything to do with that [he] thought was in any way cool.” He remembers great teachers who engaged him, despite his being “somewhat of a difficult student.” To this end, Kalkin visited campus on two occasions this spring as a special guest in Assistant Professor of Art Barry Price’s architecture courses at the college. Price invited Kalkin to be a guest teacher and critic because, as Price puts it, he “thought Kalkin would be interesting, not only for the range of his architectural work, but for the multidisciplinary approach that he brings to his practice. This is a great model for the liberal arts-based students” at Vassar.
To learn more about Quik House, visit www.architectureandhygiene.com.Description Letters written by Beth Puckett to her husband Lewis Puckett, who was serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre. In addition to the continued theme of separation, topics frequently discussed include home improvements, clothing, and financial planning; rationing; and the Pucketts' children, about whom Beth writes with both pride and bitterness at being the sole witness to their growth. Subjects of local and regional significance include Mackinaw, Fairy Stone State Park, and the Great Atlantic Hurricane.
Letters from Beth Puckett to Lewis Puckett (August, 1944)...Outer harbour critic John Cooper steps up for election battle
THE man who spearheaded efforts to scrutinise dealings at the outer harbour is to stand as an Independent in a Norfolk County Council by-election.
Pledging openness and transparency, John Cooper of Gorleston, has entered the contest following the stepping down of Gerald Cook as representative of Lothingland on grounds of ill health.
The Lothingland ward covers Belton with Browston, Bradwell South, Fritton and St Olaves, Magdalen, and most of Hopton.
Mr Cooper will be fighting the by-election on Thursday, May 5 – the same day as the district, borough and parish elections, and referenda for an Elected Mayor of Great Yarmouth and Alternative Voting system.
On May 5, 13 wards will be contested on Great Yarmouth Borough Council and there will also be elections for seats at Broadland District Council in areas including Acle, Blofield, South Walsham, Brundall and Sprowston.
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Battling for a county council seat, Mr Cooper has been in the spotlight for over a year pushing for a public inquiry into the development of the outer harbour.
The criticism, mostly through the letter columns of The Mercury, expressed public unease over the issue and led to a Norfolk County Council scrutiny committee inquiry into the