IIA Security Portal

Day 5 of Cyber Security Awareness Week. Last day...

If you’ve followed through on the previous 4 days, you’ll have your Operating System fully updated; your understanding of what not to click improved; you won’t be sharing more personal data publically online than you have to, and you’ll be just that little more “Cyber Security Aware”.

So hopefully this last tip won’t apply to you. During the past few weeks I’ve increasingly come across people who swear on a stack of bibles that not only are they perfectly Cyber Security aware, but they’re unlikely to ever be infected/affected by the Cyber Criminals. But there has _always_ been an, “Except for”. Look for those “Except for” elements in your Cyber Life and deal with them. For instance, Anti-Virus programs are only as good as the last Update to Virus definitions that you’ve received. If there’s anything impairing the update, get it fixed immediately.

Time and again I’ve also come across people with an almost “Militaristic” point of view when it comes to Cyber Attacks (Well some have been from the Military, so that’s understandable), believing that “Attack is the best form of defence”. This is one of those instances when the Net cannot be compared to the real world. If you have a physical location of a Cyber criminal, and you can catch him with his fingers on the keys, then fair enough. But that’s not usually the case.

To properly mitigate Cyber Security issues, you need a resilient risk reduction system which offers as many levels of defence as is possible. Starting from the top down you must have a responsible Cyber Security plan, and part of that plan must be behaviour management of the people using the Net. Then they must have as much up to date and fully functional Anti-Virus/Firewall software as their particular platform can run. Finally, if you are going to be serious about risk reduction on your network, you must have an external device that operates as a first line of defence.

I doubt, I certainly Hope, that you would not find any corporate or large scale operation running today, that does not have this final option. In the Corporate world, you will find large scale M86,Cisco Ironport, literally a plethora of flexible firewalling solutions at the boundary between their network and the Internet. They usually do a lot more than just prevent Cyber Criminals accessing the internal network, and they are designed more for protecting a Corporate network than protecting a public internet, but they are an essential piece of equipment.

The Australian Protected Network is designed to fill this role. It is a framework which allows every internet connected device to get a basic level of protection from the Cyber Criminals before they can even reach a public internet device. The proposal is for a low impact, First line of Defence. It does not intrude on the privacy of the public internet user. It does not gain knowledge of what to block based on monitoring the action of Internet users. It does however intercept Cyber Criminal activity, preventing malicious sites being accessed and in the process, educating the users on what they have done to put themselves in danger.

In one step, we go from an uncontrollable problem to an environment where the user is safer, better informed, and more resilient to the threats which up until now, have had no comprehensive response to them.

The Australian Protected Network - For the first time, a simple click of a button can give Government, Businesses, Organisations and Families the protection they need. The protection YOU need.

http://www.australianprotectednetwork.com.au/