It’s been an interesting few months for the Australian National University (ANU), especially in the wake of the massive data breach they reported back in June 2019. Vice Chancellor, Professor Brian P. Schmidt AC, committed to a making the full investigation public following this incident; a move that was incredibly brave and showed a level of integrity and honestly rarely seen in the wake of such a crippling cyberattack.
In fact, Professor Schmidt, in his foreword to the report, states, “To my knowledge, this publicly available report is the first of its kind in Australia following a cyberattack on a public institution.” He goes on to explain his reasons, again showing a level of maturity that should be adopted as the defector approach for all Australian organisations. “I have made this report public because it contains valuable lessons not just for ANU, but for all Australian organisations who are increasingly likely to be the target of cyberattacks. It is confronting to say this, but we are certainly not alone, and many organisations will already have been hacked, perhaps without their knowledge. I hope this report will help them protect themselves, and their data and their communities.”
The ANU investigation certainly makes for interesting reading and I’d urge all our readers to download and share it with their peers. However, it’s too broad to do justice to in a summary in this editorial, so rather than try, I wanted to focus on one aspect that stood out to me that I think is worth considering. The breach was discovered, not because ANU has the most advanced security analytics. Machine learning, SIEM systems, artificial intelligence or modern endpoint detection and response technology, rather early indications of the attack were discovered, “in April 2019 during a baseline threat hunting exercise.”…Click here to read full article.
