Tag Archive for: Challenges

Information security challenges emerge often, ACW SOUTH can help forge cyber security for Taiwan

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Taiwan is under foreign cyber attacks up to 30 million times on average every month. How can ACW SOUTH play its role to lay down foundations for cyber security and empower cybersec talents at the time when information and communication technology is rising and cyber threats are imminent?

TAIPEI, Oct. 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — In early October, Optus, Australia’s second largest telecom service provider was hacked, causing tens of millions of private data leakage, including names, phone numbers, emails and passport numbers. The victims of the cyber attack not only suffered from unexpected financial risks, but also were afflicted by such security concerns as information theft and privacy invasion.

Photo Credit：ACW South Cybersec Service HQ in Shalun, Tainan

Taiwan, with an equivalent number of population to Australia, has been under numerous cyber attacks. According to statistics, the average monthly foreign cyber attacks on Taiwan’s government agencies reach 30 million. In 2021, Taiwan’s government agencies reported 696 cyber security incidents. What the statistics are telling us is that you may rarely see it, but cyber security crises do exist, and they are everywhere. To prevent hackers from taking advantage of the accessibility of digital technology, we should build up accurate cyber security concepts, as we are enjoying the benefits of mobile lifestyle, and stay alert to new types of information security crises like hacker intrusion, data leakage and inappropriate uses of data.

Cyber security breaches everywhere, major international information security incidents become the focus

According to the 2022 Cyber Security Report released by cyber security solution provider, Check Point, on average this year, companies engage with cyber attacks 50% more than last year. Software providers are the main targets of such attacks, with the number of attacks increasing by 146%. In addition to the rising number of cyber attacks, Check Point also notes the trend of cyber attacks influencing people’s daily life. For instance, in 2021 the persistent attacks not only target supply chains, but also mobile devices, cloud service providers, national critical infrastructure, etc. Some cyber security incidents have seriously impacted people’s daily…

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President calls for national strategy to meet conventional, cyber warfare challenges

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President calls for national strategy to meet conventional, cyber warfare challenges

President Dr Arif Alvi has called for outlining a national strategy securing the domains of both traditional and non-traditional security including cyber warfare. 

Addressing the inaugural session of a two-day conference on ‘Challenges and Opportunities Evolving Global Order’ in Islamabad on Wednesday, the President said the renewed world order demands sustainable conditions ensuring internal and external opportunities for all citizens for a prosperous future.

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New research collaboration leverages edge computing to meet defence and security challenges

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Professor David Lie (ECE) is collaborating with researchers from across Canada to develop edge computing solutions to address defence and security challenges.

The project — A Platform for Secure and Dependable Hierarchical Edge Processing on 5G — has received $1.5 million in funding over three years from Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND).

Edge computing refers to the processing of data near its originating source, not in distant servers. The project proposes a hierarchy of data centres that provides computation and storage at the peripheries, shifting from a country level all the way down to a neighbourhood level. The strategy aims to mitigate the high latency of cloud-based applications caused by limited internet bandwidth.

“Imagine you’re trying to run an intelligent transportation system, where vehicles are sending and receiving large amounts of data to the cloud in real time,” says Lie. “Today, the cloud’s architecture means there’s some distance between the servers and the vehicles. Even at the speed of an electron, there are processing delays, and that makes a difference when you’re dealing with a moving vehicle. Edge computing can reduce those delays.”

As part of its Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Program, DND is supporting the creation of ‘micro-nets’ — self-organized multidisciplinary teams of at least three eligible organizations/institutions who carry out interdisciplinary research on aspects of a science and technology challenge of common interest.

In addition to Lie, the team includes Professor Eyal de Lara, Chair of U of T’s Department of Computer Science, as well as Professor Oana Balmau of the School of Computer Science at McGill University, Professor Julien Gascon-Samson of the Software and IT Engineering Department at ÉTS Montréal / University of Québec, and Professor Aastha Mehta of the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.

Together, they will design a new platform based on localized data centres situated near the field of use. The idea is that these centres would better deliver reliable, predictable and secure performance for future high-performance…

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How to face the new challenges in an ever-expanding – and risky – internet environment

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Two decades ago, we kept everything relatively simple by containing our organization’s technology footprint within the closed fortress that was the corporate network. The IT staff determined which tools to deploy, and the security team figured out how to best protect them and the network.

This seems a distant memory now, thanks to modern innovation: Work-from-home (WFH) arrangements continue to transform the traditional office culture, with spikes in cloud adoption, shadow IT, and Bring Your Own … Everything. The resulting widespread connectivity has boosted productivity. But it has also ushered in a new era of exposure because of a vastly increased attack surface.

Subsequently, chief information security officers (CISOs) and their teams can no longer afford to view their roles as an “after the fact,” reactive responsibility. They must instead take proactive steps to identify all internet-facing assets from the very beginning and protect them. With improved visibility and a “security first” commitment, companies can operate with peace of mind.

To illustrate this, we recently published research in which we evaluated the presence of a variety of risks and vulnerabilities in random samples of 2.2 million hosts in our Universal Internet Dataset (UIDS). Here’s what we found:

  • WFH brings new challenges. Connecting remotely, employee-users are expanding the attack surface, although it’s an unintended result of their actions in most cases. Post-pandemic remote work has driven a 59%  increase in the use of tools and devices not approved by IT (commonly called shadow IT), leading to unmanaged devices/services because IT and security teams are left out of the conversation. What’s more, we have found that organizations now use an average of 44 different domain registrars and 17 hosting providers – another likely outcome of shadow IT that further contributes to visibility issues.
  • Misconfigurations and exposures create the most risks. Misconfigurations – such as unencrypted services, insufficient or missing security controls, and self-signed certificates – account for about 60% of internet risks. Exposures of services, devices and information represent 28%.
  • Exposures are not…

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