A cyber security expert is warning Australian NFPs to brace themselves for huge disruption as the toll of the world’s biggest ever cyber breach is still yet to be realised.
Described by some tech experts as the biggest cyber breach in history, the ‘Apache Log4j’ issue which first reared its head in December is yet to reveal the depth of destruction it will cause to Australian infrastructure.
The ‘Apache Log4j’ issue first reared its head in December of last year. The open-source Java-logging library showed multiple vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a remote attacker to control Java-based web servers and launch remote-code execution attacks.
One cyber security specialist is advising organisations to be as proactive as possible in finding out whether or not they have been compromised to prevent ransomware attacks and other malicious hacks
Many organisations may unknowingly have been hacked already. The modern tactic employed by most hackers is to work as quietly and discreetly as possible, burrowing deep into files, servers, emails and collecting key data before stinging an organisation for a ransom.
Many in the community and NFP sector are already at risk due to under-funded weaker systems, despite protecting the data of some of the most vulnerable members of society.
Initial steps organisations can take include:
Greg Clarkson is a cyber security expert based in Melbourne. He has worked for over 20+ years as MD of Network Overdrive, which was targeted in '4th July attack' the largest ransomware event in history, and so has both industry knowledge and first-hand experience of being attacked in the cyber space.