Microsoft’s top cyber security officials in Australia teamed up with CybergymIEC and the Victorian State government to explain the latest cyber threats facing their region and strategies to combat them. While the information is focused on Australia, the answers are universal and timely. Hear Microsoft’s Director / APAC Chief Cybersecurity Advisor and their Head of Cyber Security in these video highlights from the Australia Cyber Summit 2022. 

 

Abbas Kudarti’s insights into the evolving cyber security threat landscape

Abbas Kudarti discusses the continuously evolving cyber threat landscape, how our perimeter has become “perimeterless” during the pandemic, and how attackers are now exploiting the new reality in intelligent and dangerous ways such as:

  • Phishing and password spray using the lure of world-events 
  • Human-operated ransomware
  • IoT malware 
  • SMiShing & wishing mobile device attacks
  • Nation-state attacks

According to Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence, the top five targeted industries are:

  1. Education
  2. Financial industry or insurance companies 
  3. Critical infrastructures 
  4. Transportation 
  5. Health care

Catch Microsoft’s Director / APAC Chief Cybersecurity Advisor’s thoughts and insights on the current threat landscape in this video. 

 

What will CISOs focus on post-pandemic?

In the video below, Kudarti shares the highlights of Microsoft’s 2021 survey of 100s of CISOs around the world. They were asked what their technology priorities were before the pandemic, what they were during the pandemic and on what they plan to focus after the pandemic. 

Kudarti also touches on how Microsoft is: 

  • Bringing in automation and AI to help with alert (or dashboard) fatigue 
  • Using biometric voice-based authentication as a multi-factor initiative because fingerprints and facial recognition don’t work when the user is wearing gloves and masks 
  • Introducing Quantam as a service
  • Saying goodbye to different teams working in silos because today, a holistic view of IT, OT, and IoT is needed 

Hear Kudarti discuss the above in more detail in this video:  

 

Adapting to the new cyber threat landscape: 3 themes in Australia

In the video clip below, Kenny Singh shares the cyber trends Australia is facing. He says there are namely three broad, consistent themes across commercial and public sector customers whether they are small small or large:

  1. Increased focus on cyber hygiene and the 8 mitigation strategies 
  2. Zero trust
  3. High degree of administrative privilege governance

He also discussed:

  • The six typical vectors or six doors of attack today’s threat actors perpetrate 
  • The transition to a risk-based approach to cyber security
  • An empowering example of using a holistic approach to cyber risk in terms of the overall enterprise risk 

Watch Microsoft’s Head of Cyber Security explain these:

 

Moving from current state capability to future state agility

Kenny Singh takes us through an example of incident response and incident management to help us start to shift our thinking from the current state capability to future state agility. He calls out a “very, very” important factor in incident response and incident management. That is, understanding the criticality of assets from a business perspective:

  • Determining assets and the degree of criticality each carries
  • Prioritizing in the event multiple assets are attacked
  • Leveraging employees

Singh also details Microsoft’s three-tier response in the event a business’ processes are compromised. He further explains the tool Microsoft and CybergymIEC developed that simplifies life for those in the SOC by enabling them to more effectively qualify many varied and persistent threats. Check out Kenny in this video: 

 

 

You can watch the entire Australia’s Cyber Summit 2022 or get in touch with us to learn more about our program that will help you defend your organization more effectively.