AUSCERT 30 Years 30 Stories – Peter Newman

Utilising AUSCERT’s services in the gambling industry, Peter Newman has a long history with AUSCERT. Initially working for University of Queensland (UQ), Peter Newman is now the Head of Threat at The Lottery Corporation. Providing insight into AUSCERT’s services and predicting its future, check out Peter’s AUSCERT connection story.

What motivated your organisation to become a member?

The Lottery Corporation is only a year old, recently splitting from Tabcorp. As a flow-on organisation of Tabcorp we utilise the same services. As Tabcorp were already AUSCERT members, we decided to continue the same framework with an AUSCERT membership for The Lottery Corporation.

As an AUSCERT member, what are the key benefits?

The Lottery Corporation use the bulletin service, which is a primary feed into our vulnerability management program. We also use AUSCERT’s seven-day feed for malware URLs. With this resource, we look at the domains our users are visiting, and if that domain is listed as a malicious URL, we investigate further.

How has AUSCERT evolved over the years?

When I began with AUSCERT, they were focused on incident response. Currently, AUSCERT have been developing its threat intelligence resources and feeds associated with that. Another aspect that AUSCERT has done well over the years, is maintaining relationships with other certs around the world – enabling them to become highly efficient at phishing take downs.

What advice would you give to someone considering becoming an AUSCERT member?

Understanding what AUSCERT can do for you is a challenge; a lot of the people that become members only use one or two services. Knowing everything AUSCERT can do for your business is the best advice I can give.

What do you think the future holds for AUSCERT?

AUSCERT will need to continually pivot even though its staples are solid. As a community organisation, AUSCERT must keep adjusting to the community itself and how it changes. I predict AUSCERT will continue to grow in the threat intelligence area and more in education.

What sets AUSCERT apart from other organisations in the cyber security space?

Being vendor-agnostic specifically sets AUSCERT apart – everybody in cyber security is trying to sell you something. Although AUSCERT is selling you something, it’s in a not-for-profit method. Due to this, AUSCERT can leverage their community to feedback on itself.