Tag Archive for: life

‘You really need people from all walks of life’

/in


In line with the Morrison government’s recent announcement of $60 million in grant funding to support cyber security projects that focus on increasing diversity in the sector, the connection between diversity of representation and secure online environments cannot be ignored.

The Cyber Security Skills Partnership Innovation Fund will particularly preference projects that seek to boost the participation of women, indigenous Australians, people based in regional and remote areas, and neurodiverse people.

Measuring this diversity accurately and broadly is an important first step to improving Australia’s performance around inclusion and advancement.

ANZ Bank chief security officer Lynwen Connick and Verizon general counsel MJ Salier

According to ANZ Bank chief information security officer Lynwen Connick, the borderless nature of online commerce and social interaction means it has never been more important to have diversity of representation inside organisations big and small.

“You need people with the right skills, you need a diversity of people who bring different views and ideas into the picture,” Ms Connick said on this week’s Counterpoint Conversations podcast.

“You really need to be able to get people from all walks of life, understanding security, and people studying security. And you need gender diversity, you need diversity of skills, you need diversity across different cultures, because we’re all connected so intimately in cyberspace.”

Research shows diversity delivers benefits including better financial performance, increased creativity and innovation, greater employee satisfaction, lower absenteeism and stronger talent retention. But there remains little data on the true state of diversity in the Australian tech industry.

Ms Connick said there are two levels to the diversity challenge. On the one hand, it is important to have diversity of background and skills around policy and cybersecurity, but it is also really important to increase diversity on the technical expertise side of the equation.

“There is a great mystique around cyber, that it must be really complicated and it’s really difficult,” she said. “And a lot of people…

Source…

Malicious Life Podcast: Inside Operation Flyhook Part 2

/in


Malicious Life Podcast: Inside Operation Flyhook Part 1 Transcript

Do you ever wonder how different you’d be today if you grew up under a different set of circumstances?

Like, I can imagine, maybe, that I wasn’t born in Israel. So I might not have joined the Navy, which became so integral to the skill set I developed and the kind of man I am today. And, you know, I’m obsessed with history, but maybe I wouldn’t be so into it had I grown up in a less historically significant part of the world. I could’ve gone into a different line of work. Or what if, in another life, I grew up rich, and didn’t have to work at all? Then I could spend all my days doing what I really want to do…

INTRO TO ALEXEY
The year is 1999.

The internet is now in homes around the United States, and the world. Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon–what were just startups a few years earlier are now the hottest companies in the world. Really, any half-baked company with a “.com” at the end is running rampant in the stock market, even if all they do is sell toys or pet food. Whole new industries are popping up, and millions of jobs along with them. Everybody wants in.

Alexey Ivanov is exactly the kind of person to benefit from the boom because, when it comes to coding, he’s little short of prolific. According to his CV, Alexey’s either good or proficient in HTML, Javascript, SQL, C, C++, Assembler, good or excellent with MS-DOS, Linux, Solaris, every version of Windows, with a comprehensive understanding of LAN, WAN, DNS, TCP/IP FTP, DNS, equally proficient with IBM, Sun Microsystems, HP and Cisco hardware. And that’s just a sampling from a much longer list–to read out his entire CV now would take too long.

The point here is that Alexey knew his stuff. He could’ve qualified for a job at any internet company in the world. But Alexey Ivanov was born into a different set of circumstances than you and I. He was a lot like us in other ways–bright, talented, technical–but, instead of being from America, or Germany, or Japan, Alexey was born in Russia. And not even Moscow, or St. Petersburg, but…

“[Ray] from a little place called Chelyabinsk which is kind of in the middle of nowhere in…

Source…

Keenan: Beware the ransomware that could mean life or death

/in


Author of the article:

Tom Keenan

Publishing date:

Nov 13, 2021  •  22 minutes ago  •  4 minute read  •  Join the conversation

This Feb 23, 2019, file photo shows the inside of a computer in Jersey City, N.J.
This Feb 23, 2019, file photo shows the inside of a computer in Jersey City, N.J. Photo by Jenny Kane /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The major outage of health-care computer systems in Newfoundland and Labrador has undoubtedly damaged the health of ordinary citizens there and tarnished the province’s reputation. I have bad news for them, it could get much worse.

I speak with some authority on this matter. My academic research field is information security. I taught what I believe was Canada’s first course on that subject on Oct. 14, 1977. From an actuarial standpoint, the pool of people who can dispute that claim gets smaller every year.

In 1984, I helped to write our country’s first computer crime laws. I have even testified before the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in a health privacy case and analyzed the very system, Meditech, that has been attacked in the current crisis.

It appears that ransomware is very much a guy thing. Almost all of the notorious ransomware criminals who have been identified are male. At least one study showed that men are also more likely to be victims. Researchers at the École Polytechnique de Montréal found that “being a male was identified as an independent risk factor” for falling victim to most malware attacks.

The crisis in Canada’s easternmost province concerns me greatly. Media reports say that people were sleeping on the floor in an overcrowded St. John’s emergency room. Urgent, life-saving surgeries had to be postponed.

Provincial authorities tried to be cagey about the attack. Health Minister John Haggie kept calling it “a possible cyber attack.” Deputy Premier Siobhán Coady dodged questions about whether this was ransomware in a Nov. 2 press conference. She simply repeated, three times, “We…

Source…

Class teaches how to protect against online threats | Life

/in


Source…