Author: Toby Murray, Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

Several of Australia’s biggest superannuation funds have suffered a suspected coordinated cyberattack, with scammers stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of members’ retirement savings. Superannuation funds including Rest, HostPlus, Insignia, Australian Retirement and AustralianSuper have all reportedly been targeted. However, so far AustralianSuper appears to be the worst affected. It is Australia’s largest superannuation fund. It has roughly 3.5 million members and manages more than $365 billion in retirement savings. In this cyberattack, a handful of its members have lost about A$500,000 in combined savings. AustralianSuper is reportedly assisting authorities recover the money. It has not yet confirmed if any…

Yesterday, The Atlantic magazine revealed an extraordinary national security blunder in the United States. Top US government officials had discussed plans for a bombing campaign in Yemen against Houthi rebels in a Signal group chat which inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. This is hardly the first time senior US government officials have used non-approved systems to handle classified information. In 2009, the then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton fatefully decided to accept the risk of storing her emails on a server in her basement because she preferred the convenience of accessing them using her personal…

In July last year, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, directed tech companies to develop codes of practice to keep children safe from online porn and harmful content. Now, after seven months, the industry has submitted draft codes to eSafety for approval. eSafety is currently assessing the draft codes. Assuming Grant approves the new codes, what can we expect the future to look like for children and teens online? And how effective will the proposed codes be at protecting children? A coordinated approach The codes submitted for approval were developed by a group of industry associations. They cover social media…

Before the end of its first full day of operations, the new Trump administration gutted all advisory panels for the Department of Homeland Security. Among these was the well-respected Cyber Safety Review Board, or CSRB. While this change hasn’t received as much notice as Trump’s massive announcement about AI, it has potentially significant implications for cyber security. The CSRB is an important source of information for governments and businesses trying to protect themselves from cyber threats. This change also throws into doubt the board’s current activities. These include an ongoing investigation into the Salt Typhoon cyber attacks which began as…