Cyber Security
Protecting company data in the event of a breach
T By Daniel Lai, archTIS CEO
48 | Cyber Risk Leaders Magazine
he Reserve Bank of New Zealand became the latest major organisation to suffer a serious and malicious cybersecurity attack in January this year when it’s third-party file sharing system was hacked. In its latest update on the event, RBNZ said the nature and extent of the breach was still being investigated, and that some commercially and personally sensitive information may have been illegally downloaded. Investigations into the attack were continuing, though the breach was said to be contained. RBNZ isn’t alone in its recent cybersecurity suffering. Just last year, the Australian Government was forced to respond to a breach which resulted in the details of thousands of MyGov accounts put up for sale on the dark web. Regis Healthcare, Melbourne TAFE and the Department of Home Affairs also faced major security breaches to their data systems in 2020. Unfortunately, in today’s cybersecurity landscape, it may only be a matter of time before your organisation falls victim to an attack too. Research by Accenture in its 2020 Cyber Threatscape Report found that the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in businesses being increasingly exposed to opportunistic cyber threats, including phishing campaigns, discontinuity
of information security operations and long-term financial constraints. The report warned that the ongoing economic fallout as a result of the pandemic could create serious financial challenges for companies’ information security operations. Meanwhile working from home policies further exposed companies to cyberattacks, as employees relied on lesssecure home Wi-Fi routers and VPN connections to do their jobs rather than company infrastructure.
How can data be protected in the event of a breach? While New Zealand’s central bank hasn’t yet provided many details about the breach, it’s likely that the hacked thirdparty file sharing system was cloud-based. Most breaches of this type are generally caused by a compromised user account, via malware, phishing or by over-sharing, where an anonymous URL is shared without requiring the individual user to authenticate. In most security software and with many security policies, the login process is not robust enough to guarantee that a logged in user is who they say they are, in
