AUSCERT Week in Review for 9th October 2020

Greetings,

This week our team participated in the 2020 ASEAN CERT Incident Drill which was organised by colleagues from the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA). The theme was especially pertinent this year – “Malware Campaign Leveraging the Pandemic Situation” – and we look forward to further collaborations with CSA and the wider CERT community in the future. These drill exercises are an integral part of our staff training and development initiatives and we are grateful for the opportunity to be involved.

Next Tuesday 13th October at 11AM AEDT, tune in to the following thought leadership panel discussion as our Senior Manager Mike Holm joins a number of panel members from Baidam Solutions Pty Ltd and Vectra AI to discuss the topic of “Network Detection and Response”. This event is being held in conjunction with the annual Australian Indigenous Business Month. Moderated by CISO, author and influencer Claire Pales – this should be a good one!

Last but not least, don’t forget to complete the 2020 BDO in Australia and AUSCERT Cyber Security Survey. This anonymous survey closes at midnight on Friday, 30 October 2020 and takes less than 10 minutes to complete and by taking part, you will be offered the chance to win one of two Apple Watches.

Until next week, have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Ransomware: Surge in attacks as hackers take advantage of organisations under pressure
Date: 2020-10-08
Author: ZDNet

Cyber criminals are doubling down on ransomware attacks, deploying more sophisticated campaigns at a time when remote working is already creating additional security challenges for businesses.

All the tech in the 2020 federal budget
Date: 2020-10-07
Author: iTnews

Hundreds of millions of dollars flows to IT. Government agencies have scored funding for a range of projects in this year’s pandemic-dominated federal budget, with significant money flowing to all the usual suspects.
The centrepiece is a half a billion dollar investment for Services Australia to complete its massive Centrelink IT overhaul, which began more than five years ago.
The funding brings the project’s budget to more than $1.1 billion over nine years.

Cybercriminals Have Shifted Their Attack Strategies. Are You Prepared?
Date: 2020-10-05
Author: Security Week

Recent threat research shows that during the first six months of 2020, cybercriminals adapted their usual attack strategies to take advantage of the global pandemic and target the expanded attack surface created by the dramatic shift to remote workers. Understanding this trend is critical for security teams tasked with identifying threats and properly securing networks.

ESB-2020.3464 – chromium-browser: Multiple vulnerabilities

Updates for the world’s most popular browser.

ESB-2020.3459 – thunderbird: Multiple vulnerabilities

Multiple thunderbird issues fixed.

ESB-2020.3453 – Android: Multiple vulnerabilities

Latest Android security patches released.

Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend!

The AUSCERT team