Common enemy, common response for cybersecurity

Every day the world increasingly relies on the flow of digital information – from banking to education to travel to health – it Is vital. The way that we want to work and live relies heavily on our ability to securely access whenever we want it, wherever we want it.

Breaches are in the news more frequently than ever. The financial cost of these breaches is enormous, and so is the cost to reputation and confidence in some of our largest and most trusted organisations. In a recent story with the Australian Information Industry Association, we highlight the value of collaboration and partnerships across our industry to mitigate risks and limit the cost.

The growth in cyber-crime is a well-documented by-product of the pandemic.

What’s particularly concerning is that around one quarter of all attacks were against critical infrastructure.

Organisations that operate critical infrastructure have increasing obligation to protect that infrastructure not only for their own benefit but for the downstream benefit of organisations that connect to and rely on that infrastructure.

Cisco strongly believes that finding solutions to difficult problems requires partnerships with both business and universities. This is particularly true in relation to cyber security where collaborative action is one of our greatest levers against increasingly sophisticated attack vectors.

No one understands how precious digital information is more than

Professor Trish Williams from Flinders University who specialises in digital health systems.

Trish is the Cisco Chair in Digital Health Research at Flinders University.

Trish says, “Healthcare is critical infrastructure because we are very dependent as a society on our ability to access health care services particularly emergency services. There is a huge cost in being able to rectify security incidents which can cost up to a million dollars for each incident. That is money that could be better spent on delivering health care rather than protecting against cyber-attacks.”

“The Cisco partnership allows us to integrate the deep clinical and operational expertise of health specialists with the insights from Cisco which are built on billions of individual data points collected across their networks around the world.”

The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre: a testbed for cybersecurity collaboration

The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre is a focal point for cybersecurity advice and advocacy nationally. The centre provides cyber security training tools and educational resources for everyone across the community from schools to businesses large and small. At the core of the relationship is the centre’s cyber range which allows organisations to come and test the security of tech equipment and their work configuration.

The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre CEO Matt Salier shares more.

“The Cisco partnership is a wonderful opportunity to extend our cyber training academy utilising Cisco’s networking academy courses that provide accredited cyber security professionals to ensure that businesses are best protected from the range of cyber security threats out there.”

Petru Tigler became involved in fighting cybercrime the hard way when his small business was hacked …

Now he’s passing on what he’s learned.

Petru is a teacher at Victoria University, where students are taught in a cybersecurity lab created in partnership with Cisco.

“My passion was being able to help people that have fallen victim to cyber-attacks and also around awareness as well, I already had a strong passion for cyber awareness before I decided to become a teacher.”

Cisco has over 5,000 students that are undertaking cyber skills courses within the networking academies this year. That is up 50% on just a year ago. Additionally, the national industry innovation network – a national partnership – fosters collaboration across universities, and is focused on helping bring industry academia and technology together.

As the battle against cyber-crime increases Cisco believes its best chance lies in a unified approach – that thwarting potential attacks is everyone’s business.

The consequences of getting it wrong is that it might be limited to an organisation but more than likely it will flow through into other organisations, so we have a common enemy we need a common response.

Watch the story on the AIIA episode, here.